


Meet Cute

by Lady_of_the_Refrigerator



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:48:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2620652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator/pseuds/Lady_of_the_Refrigerator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz's peaceful spring break getaway is interrupted by a late-night fire alarm and the half-naked man from the room next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Random AU prompts on tumblr are the bane of my increasing list of WIPs, I swear. Inspired by this one: _Someone needs to write a ‘the fire alarm went off at 3 am and now the cute guy from the flat next door is standing next to me in his underwear’ AU_

Liz sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding in her chest, roused by the blaring sound of the fire alarm. Stumbling onto the semi-private patio before she was fully conscious, only one thought occupied her groggy mind—get out _now_.  
  
The chilly air woke her instantly. It might have been unseasonably warm for March, but it wasn’t nearly warm enough for what she wore to bed. She knew she should have packed something flannel when she chose to head north for this trip, one last hurrah before she graduated, a splurge she’d been saving up for for quite literally years.  
  
The sound of her neighbor’s door sliding open behind her startled her, and she spun around to see a man in nothing but his underwear burst out onto the patio, nearly jumping straight into the air when his bare feet came in contact with the stone.  
  
“ _Christ_ , it’s cold.” He stopped in his tracks when he noticed her standing there. “Hello,” he said, and offered her a crooked smile.  
  
They seemed to register at the same moment just how little they were wearing, and looked each other up and down swiftly. She crossed her arms over her chest and wished, not for the first time, that her tiny sleep shorts covered more of her legs. He wasn’t as obviously self-conscious, but he still casually clasped his hands in front of him to shield what his boxer-briefs did little to hide.  
  
“So…” he said, “do you come here often?”  
  
The absurd juxtaposition of his question and their predicament surprised a snort of laughter out of her and his face broke out into a grin that made her stomach twist in an odd, enjoyable sort of way. Her heart clenched. Finding the man attractive would be inconvenient enough if the two of them were fully clothed; now it just made an awkward situation even more awkward because she had nowhere to focus her attention without feeling like a creep.  
  
She turned away and began to pace. She could feel the man’s eyes on her, following her progress back and forth across the small patio. His attention wasn’t uncomfortable. He didn’t leer. She was grateful for that.  
  
“God, it really is cold,” she said, when the two of them were silent just a bit too long and having nothing but the sound of the alarm to distract her started to set her teeth on edge.  
  
“If you keep thinking about it, it’s only going to seem worse.”  
  
“How long do you think this’ll take?”  
  
“If it’s just a false alarm, hopefully it’ll be over soon. If not…” He shrugged. Liz frowned. “We won’t get frost-bite, if that’s what you’re afraid of. It’s not cold enough for hypothermia. It’s just… unpleasant.”  
   
She stopped pacing and stared longingly into her room, trying to work out how quickly she could get to her suitcase and back. “We could run in and grab something warm to wear, or at least a blanket. What harm could it do?”  
  
They eyed each other, waiting for someone to make the first move; neither one of them dared take a step towards their respective sliding door. The peal of a siren cut through the droning fire alarm and they both backed away from the building reflexively.  
  
“Better safe than sorry,” he said. He sniffed the air, squinting up at the hotel anxiously, and clenched his jaw. He took up pacing where she left off.  
  
Liz sighed, watching surreptitiously as he made his way up and down the patio. Might as well look at this as an opportunity to practice her profiling skills. Getting a read on a mostly-naked stranger would be an interesting challenge, one she wouldn’t have a chance to attempt very often.  
  
He kept his hair short in the front, in that weird haircut favored by men who weren’t ready to admit their hairlines were receding. The hair he had was clean but sleep-mussed, shot through with the occasional strand of white. He wasn’t in great shape, but it wasn’t terrible either—like age and overindulgence had caught up to him and he’d developed a bit of a paunch. Lean, strong arms. Muscular thighs and an admittedly great ass. Faded tattoos, mostly traditional designs. Ex-military maybe? Another quick glance as he passed her revealed a back covered with extensive scarring.  
  
Well. That probably explained his nerves.  
  
“What happened to your back?”  
  
“That’s a long and sordid story better suited to a bottle of wine shared after dinner than a patio shared with a stranger at a hotel.” He lowered himself onto one of the wooden deck chairs and crossed his legs gracefully, as if he was wearing the finest three-piece suit instead of what he was really wearing—almost nothing. “Although the latter could easily lead to the former, if you’re so inclined…” He trailed off, waiting for her to supply her name.  
  
She knew she shouldn’t. Hell, the man was a total stranger and considerably older than her, to boot, yet here he was, taking advantage of the situation to hit on her. Still, it was only her name and she wouldn’t have to see him again after tonight. If he became a problem, she could put in a request to have her room changed.  
  
“Elizabeth,” she said. “Liz.” She perched herself gingerly on the edge of the other chair, shooting for as little contact with the cold wood as possible.  
  
“So, what brings you to this charming corner of the world, Liz?”  
   
“Spring break.”  
  
He tilted his head to the side slightly, studying her face. “Most people lean toward somewhere a bit more… tropical… for spring break.”  
  
“I like the cold. In general, at least.” She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to keep her blood flowing.  
  
“Are you a skier?”  
  
“No. The mountains are… peaceful. The last thing I want from a vacation is a cheap hotel filled with rowdy, drunken college students just trying to get in each other’s pants.”  
  
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you a college student yourself?”  
  
“I’m not rowdy or drunk,” she said, defensively, “and I’m certainly not trying to get in anyone’s pants.”  
  
Just as she finished speaking, the alarm shut off; the sudden silence was as deafening as the noise had been. After a long, tense moment of unbroken eye contact, the man uttered in a low voice, “That’s a shame.”  
  
Liz’s stomach fluttered at the gravel in his tone and she swallowed hard; he looked away first. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly before she trusted herself to speak.  
  
“I don’t even know your name. Why would I—”  
  
“Raymond,” he said, still studiously avoiding her eyes. “But most people call me Red.”  
  
“Well, Red,” she said, “Raymond.” She stood and brushed herself off. “Maybe next time you proposition someone young enough to be your d—“  
  
“I didn’t proposition you,” he said quickly. He stood smoothly, walked in step with her towards the hotel. “I implied that if you propositioned me, I wouldn’t object.”  
  
“You asked me to share a bottle of wine with you after dinner.”  
  
“OK, I’ll give you that one. But isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black?”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
He stepped closer then and she had to stop herself from leaning towards the warmth radiating from his body in spite of herself.  
  
“I know it hasn’t escaped your notice that I’m more exposed here than you are,” he said. “I haven’t chastised you for your wandering eyes, have I?” Her gaze snapped back up to meet his; unconsciously, she’d been watching his lips as he spoke.  
  
“Sleep well.” He pulled back without making any physical contact whatsoever and stepped into his room.  
  
The sound of the door sliding shut startled Liz; she shook herself, both figuratively and literally, and returned to her own room, resting her forehead against the cool glass of the door after she turned the lock.  
  
She wondered how unwise it would be to take a cold shower.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Red, right? Sorry, I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said, “with your—“
> 
> “With my clothes on.” The old woman in front of them gasped, scandalized, as the host arrived to lead her and her husband into the restaurant. The husband ushered her along behind him when she tried to linger; Red smirked after them.

Liz headed down to breakfast earlier than usual the next morning, her sleep nothing but fitful after she returned to her room. She wished she could blame it on the fear of another fire alarm waking her, but the truth was she’d been driven to distraction over the intriguing, confusing encounter with the stranger from next door.  
  
It wasn’t like her to lose sleep over a guy. She had her fair share of obsessive tendencies, sure, but they usually revolved around her schoolwork or other interests, certainly not men. But perhaps the guys she knew just didn’t have what it took to spark her curiosity quite like her mysterious, mostly-naked neighbor. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was exactly she found so interesting about him, but every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was his smile, his discerning, intelligent gaze holding hers, the hair on his stomach disappearing under the waistband of his…  
  
She rolled her eyes at herself. This was getting pathetic, pure and simple. Well, come to think of it, perhaps _pure_ wasn’t the right word for it… Stifling a yawn, she resolved to put him out of her mind and joined the line for breakfast behind a bickering elderly couple.  
  
Her resolve was to be short-lived, however, when a soft, “Good morning, Lizzy,” came from behind her.  
  
Liz jumped, startled, and turned quickly towards the source of the greeting.  
  
 _Speak of the devil_ , she thought. Very few people called her Lizzy, fewer still got away with it more than once. Who else would take such a liberty but the man who had taken up residence in her mind uninvited? She debated whether or not to call him Ray in retaliation for the presumption, but ultimately decided against it for the time being.  
  
“Red, right? Sorry, I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said, “with your—“  
  
“With my clothes on.” The old woman in front of them gasped, scandalized, as the host arrived to lead her and her husband into the restaurant. The husband ushered her along behind him when she tried to linger; Red smirked after them.  
  
While Red was occupied, she looked him up and down out of the corner of her eye. The clothes in question were quite a sight to behold all their own. Even from a distance, the quality of the fabric was obvious—wool tailored to damn near perfection, a tie made of the finest silk she had ever seen, a fedora straight out of the old movies her dad used to show her when she was young—expensive, but in an understated way. She was apparently right about the three-piece suit, to boot. _And he fills it out just as well as he fills out his boxer-briefs_ , she thought, and willed herself not to blush.  
  
Red took a step forward to stand beside her, tapping his hat against his leg as he waited for the host to come back. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at breakfast before.”  
  
“I usually catch the tail end,” she said, “but I couldn’t sleep, so…”  
  
He nodded in sympathy. “It’s always difficult to keep anxiety at bay after being woken like that.”  
  
“Mmm,” she agreed, making an attempt at a smile, and hoped the guilty direction of her thoughts didn’t show on her face. She squinted into the restaurant. Just how long did it take to seat a nosy old couple, anyway?  
  
“You know, Lizzy,” he said, leaning a bit closer to her as he spoke; she clenched her jaw, tried not to let the low rumble affect her. “I visit places like this when it becomes necessary to escape the hustle and bustle of my everyday life to spend some quality time alone, but after last night I find myself longing for the pleasure of good company. Namely yours. Join me for breakfast,” he said, “please.”  
  
The hopeful look on his face stayed her immediate refusal. “Are you always such a shameless flirt or should I feel special?”  
  
“Yes,” he said, simply.  
  
She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to comment on his cryptic cheekiness but the host chose that moment to return.  
  
“How many will be dining this morning, ma’am?” he asked, his hand hovering over the menus.  
  
“Oh, um.” She glanced back at Red quickly. “Two, please.”  
  
“Excellent. If you’ll follow me?”  


* * *

  
  
The host led the two of them to a table tucked into a cozy corner of the restaurant, with a view overlooking the sunny mountainside.  
  
“Oh my god,” she said, taking in the gorgeous scenery.  
  
“See, that’s the sort of thing you miss when you sleep ’til almost lunchtime. The only sight that can possibly beat the sheer grandeur of the sunrise over the mountains here is the sunset over the lake.”  
  
Red pulled out her chair for her, but he didn’t make a show of it, which was what she preferred; it was just a simple courtesy. Anything else always made her uncomfortable.  
  
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t really come across as the type of person this place usually caters to.”  
  
“I could say the same about you.”  
  
“Touché.”  
  
Leaning back in his chair, he regarded her silently. “People make a lot of assumptions about my tastes,” he said after a long moment. “Some of that is intentionally cultivated. Some of it is… not. And speaking of tastes…”  
  
Liz followed Red’s line of sight to see their fresh-faced waiter approaching the table.  
  
“Good morning, folks. Have you decided what you’d like for breakfast today or do you need a little more time?”  
  
“I’ll have whatever she’s having,” Red said, gesturing across the table to Liz. A frisson of panic ran through her.  
  
“What? Why?”  
  
“I trust your judgment.”  
  
“OK…” Liz glanced anxiously between the two men. “Well, the corned beef hash is great, farm fresh eggs and everything else is made from scratch. There’s always eggs Benedict, they make a stellar hollandaise. And there’s nothing quite like a perfect soft boiled egg and toast. I tried the breakfast burrito the other day and I was pleasantly surprised. Of course, you can’t really go wrong with an omelette.”  
  
His eyebrows rose. “You’re a big egg fan, I take it.”  
  
She shrugged. “Growing up I only got a chance to have them on vacation and now it’s part of the whole hotel breakfast experience. If I stay long enough, I try everything they’ve got.”    
  
Their waiter stood poised to take their orders, unsure how to react to Liz basically listing off the entire egg section of the menu. “Folks?”  
  
“Oh, um… I guess we’ll both go with the eggs Benedict?”  
  
The young man nodded, relieved, and quickly left.  
  
 “How come you don’t cook eggs for yourself?” Red asked.  
  
“Somehow my father got it into his head as a kid that eggs were universally disgusting and he boycotted them forever, so I never really learned how to cook them myself because of that. When I was little, I used to make him read _Green Eggs and Ham_ to me all the time, hoping he’d get the hint and just _try_ them, but no. He wouldn’t even give them a chance.”  
  
Liz knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. _Green Eggs and Ham_ , really? She was acutely aware that she’d begun talking with her hands even though she usually didn’t; she had half a mind to sit on them before Red noticed she picked the habit up from him. If he did, he didn’t say anything.  
  
“At least you absorbed the moral of the story better than he did. It’s important to try new things whenever we can.” He dropped his voice in a way that was wholly inappropriate for a topic spawned by discussing a children’s book. “There’s a whole host of experiences we’ll miss if we insist on staying in our comfort zones all the time. It’s in our nature, that drive to seek out adventure, to expand our horizons; we’re doing ourselves a disservice if we squander it. If we do, we stagnate.”  
  
Liz pushed up her sleeves and took a long draw from her ice water, fighting off the urge to fan herself.  
  
“I think he just thought I liked it because of Sam-I-Am,” she explained in a rush, cheeks burning. “His name is Sam.”  
  
All of a sudden, as if a switch had been flipped, Red’s entire demeanor shifted. His brow furrowed and he seemed uncomfortable, almost nervous, watching her play with the condensation on her glass. “By any chance,” he asked haltingly, “is your father Sam Milhoan?”  
  
She blinked, bemused. “Yeah, how did you—?”  
  
“I know him. Knew him.” He shook his head and shrugged. “He’s an old friend. We haven’t had time to catch up in years.”  
  
“Huh. It really is a small world, isn’t it?”  
  
He frowned and nodded. “Minuscule,” he said, still unable to meet her eyes, choosing instead to nearly bore a hole in the table with the intensity of his gaze, somewhere near where her right hand rested.  
  
Thankfully, the food arrived to break the awkward tension. It was excellent, as she’d come to expect, and he thanked her for her recommendation, grateful for a chance to move on from the odd revelation that he knew her father of all people. It only served to emphasize how many years there were between them, even though he couldn’t possibly be as old as Sam. If Red didn’t mind, however, neither did she.  
  
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Liz would relate more to someone older; she always got on better with her professors than her classmates, after all. She was too intense, too driven, too serious for most people her age and always had been. She didn’t make friends easily; she lucked out with her roommate, but Jess was the exception rather than the rule. By the end of the meal, Liz and Red relaxed into an easy camaraderie the likes of which she rarely experienced; by the time he walked her back to her room and bid her goodbye with a tip of his hat, she had already begun to try to come up with an excuse to run into him again.  
  
Deciding she would be able to think more clearly after a much-needed nap, she curled up in a cocoon of quilts and blankets, falling asleep with Red in the forefront of her mind.  


* * *

  
  
She dreamt of him. Of course she did—fleeting impressions of Red in his suit from breakfast, standing over her bed, drawing his hand up her bare leg, asking her what she wanted, teasing his fingers under the edge of her sleep shorts, almost light enough to make her squirm with ticklish sensations. But a dream could only last so long and, like most of the dreams she had of that nature, she woke up with a start—alone, empty, aching—before she could find any kind of satisfaction.  
  
What did she want?  
  
She wanted _him_.  
  
He’d wormed his way into her imagination, into her subconscious, and she wasn’t ready for him to leave.  
  
Liz sighed. This sort of thing just wasn’t her purview. She was the type of person to make a goal and work her ass off until she achieved it, not the type who spent hours daydreaming about things that could never happen.  
  
But who said it couldn’t happen? Other than the odd little blip during breakfast, he certainly seemed interested. In fact, he made it rather explicitly clear the night before.    
  
She deserved to cut loose for once. A fling with one of her father’s friends seemed just the thing. A little illicit thrill went through her at the thought. It was the stuff of fantasies, really. Something other girls did. She never had the opportunity or the inclination before now. Besides, he seemed like a man who would know what he was doing. Maybe she’d finally understand what all the fuss was about.  
  
Course of action decided, she picked up her phone and dialed room service.  


* * *

  
  
Liz’s stomach clenched as she peered into Red’s hotel room from the patio. He sat in an overstuffed armchair, so engrossed in the book in his hands that he didn’t notice the movement outside his door. He’d changed out of his suit in favor of a pair of dark jeans and a cozy-looking sweater. The man certainly wore clothes well.  
  
He also wore no clothes well.  
  
Good Lord, she had a problem.  
  
She took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock. He looked up from his book at the sound of knuckles on glass; she held up a bottle of wine and a pair of wine glasses, gesturing to ask him to open the door. Marking his place, he stood and unlocked it, sliding it open.  
  
“Lizzy,” he said, his voice a warm rumble. “We have to stop meeting like this.”  
  
An unconscious smile tugged at her lips. How that nickname could go from being overly familiar to endearing in the course of a day baffled Liz, but it warmed her just the same.  
  
“What can I do for you?” he asked.  
  
“I decided to splurge a little tonight,”—she pointed awkwardly to the wine with the hand holding the glasses—“and I, uh… I could use some help finishing it.”  
  
“ _Starting_ it, you mean,” he said, amusement coloring his tone; he reached out and tapped the intact cork.  
  
She mentally cursed herself for not thinking of opening the wine ahead of time, smiled a small, self-deprecating smile, and tried a different approach.  
  
“Truth be told, I find myself longing for the pleasure of good company,” she said, using his own words from earlier. “Besides… you look like a man who could use a glass of wine.”  
  
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”  
  
She didn’t know how to respond to that, but thankfully he saved her the trouble by stepping out onto the patio and sliding his door shut behind him. She breathed a sigh of relief.    
  
Once they were inside the warmth of her room, he reached out for the bottle again; he meant to tilt it enough to read the label, but his fingers brushed hers, the contact all the more obvious because hers were so cold compared to his. He set the wine aside and took her hands between both of his, rubbing them to stimulate the circulation.  
  
“Your hands are like ice,” he said. He raised them to his mouth, using his breath to warm them.  
  
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly parched, and asked, “Do you, um, d’you think you could open the wine?”  
  
He smiled and did as she asked, pouring two servings into the glasses and holding one out to her.  
  
“I wanted to thank you. For joining me for breakfast this morning,” he said.  
  
“It’s no problem. I had a good time.”  
  
“You certainly didn’t have to put up with a lonely stranger on your vacation.”  
  
“Actually,” she said, pausing to take a sip from her glass. “I didn’t realize how lonely I’ve been lately until last night. So really,”—she took a step closer to him—“we did each other a favor, didn’t we?”  
  
“I suppose we did.”  
  
Another step forward and she reached out a cautious hand to run along his chest to his shoulder. “This is a nice sweater.” She looked up at him and asked, “Cashmere?”  
  
“Mmm,” he confirmed, taking a sip of wine without looking away.  
  
She was well within his personal space now and he did nothing to change that. Little by little, she edged even closer, sliding her hand up his shoulder to his neck. Close enough to feel his warm breath on her face, she paused, waited for him to back away. He didn’t. Pulling gently at the back of his neck, she leaned up and pressed her lips to his in a tentative kiss.  
  
It seemed like an eternity passed before he responded, his lips barely moving against hers, but then he was there, kissing her back, and she found herself moaning softly, the fluttering in her stomach multiplying.  
  
Short, hesitant kisses slowly progressed to longer, more assured ones. Without pulling away, he placed his glass on the sideboard and hers as well, before taking her face in his hands, tilting his head, and parting his lips against hers, inviting her to deepen the kiss. She whimpered into his mouth, tightening her hand around a fistful of his shirt collar as she pulled him closer.  
  
The urgent press of lips and tongue; searching hands tracing curves, caressing whatever they could reach; quiet moans and hushed, ragged breaths—all of it was much more intoxicating than the wine could ever be.  
  
Steadily, she backed him up towards the bed; he sat reflexively when his thighs hit the edge of it. She worked her fingers under his sweater while she continued to kiss him and tried to pull it up and off his torso.  
  
He tore his mouth away from hers and stilled her hands. “Lizzy, wait,” he said, breathless. “There’s something you should know.”


	3. Chapter 3

Silence stretched between them as Red stared up at Liz from his seat on the edge of the bed. Every second that ticked by only served to increase her anxiety. He trailed his hands up and down her arms, stalling for some reason she couldn’t fathom. What could he possibly have to tell her that was so important it couldn’t wait, but would paradoxically be so hard for him to say?  
  
She braced herself for the worst. He was married, three kids, the whole nine yards. Or he was gay. Or just stringing her along, thinking she wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it and now he was going to laugh at her. (Or let her down easily. He seemed the type.) He certainly wasn’t impotent, that much she was sure of. It had to be something else and, judging by his reticence, it was something serious.   
  
“Geez, Red, what’s going on? You’re starting to freak me out.”  
  
His jaw worked strangely, his eyes bright, shiny, troubled; she had the oddest sensation that he was about to cry.   
  
“Before we go any further,” he said, thickly, “I have to tell you about my scars…”  
  
His… scars? What? Was he really going to follow through with that?  
  
“Really, forget I even mentioned them. I’m not going to make you—“ He cut her off by laying a gentle finger across her lips for brief a moment before pulling away again.   
  
“If you want me to stay with you tonight, you need to know. To level the playing field, so to speak.”  
  
“I don’t understand.”  
  
“If you’d let me explain, you would.”   
  
“But your scars are none of my business, you really don’t have to—”  
  
“Yes,” he said. “I do. And believe it or not, they _are_ your business.”  
  
“All right. OK. You’ve successfully piqued my curiosity. How could your scars possibly be my business?”  
  
Some of the tension in his shoulders eased; he slid himself further back onto the bed to sit cross-legged against her pillows and patted the blanket in front of him. She climbed up and mirrored his position, so they faced each other in the middle of the bed. His socks looked woolly and warm, and she wondered distractedly what they would feel like under her fingers.  
  
That was an odd thought. She had never wanted to give a man a foot massage before.  
  
“You have to promise me something, Lizzy.” A quick touch of his fingers to her knee brought her attention back to his face. “Whatever I tell you tonight, it can’t be the reason you let me stay with you. If you let me stay, it has to be in spite of what I say, not because of it.”   
  
“OK…” She sounded dubious, even to her own ears.  
  
“Please. Promise me if you let it influence you at all, it’ll be to tell me to walk out that door and never come back.” The grave expression on his face brought her up short.  
  
“I promise,” she said.  
  
He held out his hand, intending to seal the promise with a handshake. She let out an incredulous huff of air, but took the proffered hand all the same and, ignoring the butterflies in her stomach at the contact, gave it a firm shake.  
  
Once the agreement was reached, his grip shifted seamlessly from that of a stiff and formal handshake to the kind of intimate, fortifying grasp that came with simply holding someone’s hand. He studied her hand in his, running his thumb over the back of it. The butterflies became harder to ignore.  
  
“Do you remember anything at all about your life before Sam adopted you?”  
  
“How did you know I was adopted?”  
  
“I told you. I know Sam.”  
  
“Right.” She frowned, feeling horribly slow on the uptake. “What does this have to do with—“  
  
“Do you remember the fire?”  
  
Liz’s stomach dropped and she forgot to breathe, her grip on his hand tightening reflexively. The fire that left her an orphan plagued her dreams as a child, as much for her lack of concrete memories as for the horror of it. Her subconscious mind had a habit of conjuring up new and disturbing variations of that night; it didn’t matter how hard she racked her brain, struggling to recall actual details—it was too long ago, too traumatic, and she couldn’t manage anything clearer than the terrified eyes of a young man, the overly large jacket she’d been wrapped up in, and the horrible, putrid smell of burning flesh.   
  
Burning flesh.  
  
His scars. Burn scars.  
  
She studied Red’s eyes, eyes which even now were wide and wild with something like fear, and tried to compare them to that old mental image she had to see if they matched. “Were you… Did _you_ save me?”  
  
He held her gaze, his unblinking deer-in-the-headlights stare starting to unnerve her. “Yes,” he whispered, breathless, as if the admission, or maybe just the anticipation of it, caused him physical pain.  
  
The room fell into fraught silence in the aftermath of his confession, silence filled only with the electronic hum from the incandescent lamp on the nightstand, the ticking of the clock on the mantel over the gas fireplace in the corner, the pounding of blood in her own ears. The only thing anchoring her in that moment, the only thing anchoring him, was the ever-present back-and-forth stroking of his thumb across the back of her hand.  
  
“‘Small world’ doesn’t even begin to cover this, does it?” she said, when she trusted her voice enough to speak.  
  
“No. No, it doesn’t.”  
  
“Why? Why were you… why was I… what happened?”  
  
“I was in the right place at the right time. Or maybe the wrong place at the right time.”   
  
She opened her mouth, but he held up his free hand, forestalling her.  
  
“I can’t tell you everything, I’m sorry to say. There are some things I’m not even sure of, and others that even knowing about would only put you and Sam in grave danger. Suffice to say I was there that night, performing my duty to the best of my ability, but things didn’t go according to plan.”  
  
“Your duty.”  
  
He hesitated a moment before he explained, “Something like naval intelligence.”  
  
A ripple of satisfaction washed over her. She had been right about his tattoos after all, those faded military tattoos even older than his scars. They hadn’t been touched up or added to in years, but he hadn’t had them removed or covered up. Perhaps they served as some kind of reminder, if he paid any attention to them at all.  
  
“You’re not still involved with that, are you?”  
  
“No.” There was baggage in that no, loads of it. Liz wished she knew his story, wished she could have the chance to know it.   
  
“I didn’t plan to throw all of this at you this way, Lizzy. Forgive me,” he said. “You don’t know me, you shouldn’t have to—“  
  
She leaned up on her knees, cutting him off with a sudden kiss.   
  
“It’s OK,” she said, after his eyelids fluttered open again. “Maybe… Maybe I’m meant to know you. I mean, I don’t usually believe in that kind of stuff but, really, what odds are we talking about here?”  
  
His cheek twitched, the corner of his mouth just barely curving into a shadow of a smile. She settled back down, cradling his hand now in both of hers. She focused all of her attention on his neat, clean nails, the occasional tiny freckle or odd bit of scar tissue lighter than the rest of his skin, trying to organize her thoughts, to work up the courage to ask him what she wanted to ask.  
  
“What happened after the fire? Did I ever see you again? Did I know you and I just… can’t remember?”  
  
“No. We’ve had no contact since that night.” He gave her hand a quick squeeze and said, “I did send you a Christmas present that first year, but after that… life got in the way.”  
  
“You were the one who sent the bunny?”  
  
“Sam told me you carried around the scorched stuffed rabbit you rescued from the fire like a security blanket, said you wouldn’t go anywhere without it for weeks. I figured you both could use something to bond over.”    
  
“You figured right.” She glanced up at him to find him studying their joined hands; she took a steadying breath and cleared her throat, drawing his eyes back to her face.   
  
“Would you mind if… Can I see them again?”  
  
After a long, charged moment of silence, he pulled his hand from hers and shucked off the sweater before she could react to the loss of contact. He undid the buttons on his sport shirt while holding her surprised gaze, shifting to the edge of the bed before shrugging it off his shoulders to expose his back.   
  
She knelt up behind him, traced the mottled, thickened tissue, smoothed her hands along the breadth of his shoulders, down the length of his spine. She bent to press her lips to the base of his neck, just above the beginning of the scars; a shiver ran through him when she started to kiss her way down between his shoulder blades.  
  
“I should go,” he said, turning to face her again and pulling the shirt back over his shoulders.  
  
“Please don’t.” She smiled sheepishly, reluctantly letting her grip on the fabric of his shirt loosen. She smoothed out the wrinkles she’d made, meeting his eyes with the most earnest expression she could muster. “Stay. I want you to stay. I wanted you to stay before, this hasn’t changed that.”   
  
Slowly, he leaned back against her pillows, stretching his legs out on the bed. She settled into the pillows next to him, slid her arm around his waist inside his unbuttoned shirt. His hand found hers on his stomach and he entwined their fingers in a sliding caress.  
  
“Would you ever have told me? Sam hasn’t. Obviously. Do you think you would have sought me out eventually?”  
  
“I’ve thought about it. Every now and then, I’ve wondered what it would be like, coming to see you, explaining who I was and what I’d done. Getting to know who you’d become. I always talk myself out of it. It would have been selfish of me to do that to you, unless it was strictly necessary. Just seeking validation that I’ve done at least one thing right.”  
  
“You make it seem like you’re a terrible person.”  
  
“Like I said, Lizzy—You don’t know me. It’s even selfish of me to be here now, to accept this comfort from you. I don’t deserve it.”  
  
Liz shook her head and he turned to search her eyes. “You let me be the judge of that, OK?”   
  
She ran her fingers through his hair, combing them across his scalp the way Sam used to do to comfort her, to calm her when nothing else would. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and he sighed into her, clinging to her tightly until his grip loosened in sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, the sun rose over the mountains, greeting the early bird diners in the rustic restaurant dining room. Liz, however, wasn’t there to see it that day; she stretched languorously between luxurious sheets as she stirred slowly, the warmth at her back making her want nothing more than to snuggle deeper under the covers and drift off again.  
  
Well.  
  
It made her want _almost_ nothing more.  
  
She dreamt of Red again. Wrapped up as she was in the smell of him, in the feel of him, it would have surprised her if she hadn’t. The dreams were now furnished with a realism based on the experience of what it truly felt like to kiss him, to be held by him. She longed to add to those experiences. She longed for more than just dreams.   
  
That lazy morning found her filled with an aching want the likes of which she’d never experienced.    
  
Fierce. Profound. _Unsatisfied_. Everything else paled in comparison.      
  
Liz had always been able to put attraction in its place in the past, but perhaps that was because she’d never felt it so strongly before. It was disconcerting, really. What if she was disappointed? What if he wasn’t interested anymore?   
  
As much as Red might fear her desire to please him would now be borne out of thinking herself indebted to him, she feared he would no longer even entertain the possibility of an assignation between them at all.   
  
If anything, his insistence that she know the truth about their shared past before they crossed any real lines gave her some reassurance that he wasn’t trying to take advantage of her. It gave her a better insight into his character; despite whatever misdeeds he alluded to, he was still in some important ways an honorable man.  
  
An honorable man she happened to want to climb like a tree.   
  
Now if only she could convince him that’s what she wanted. She sighed. Maybe if he woke up pressed against her, he’d take the hint. And hopefully the initiative.  
  
Feigning a stretch, she slid herself back so she wriggled against him and his hands, which up until then had been loosely draped across her hips, tightened slightly; an instinctive, reflexive rocking of hips pushed his swelling hardness against her ass. She bit her lip and wriggled again, drawing an unconscious moan from him that shot straight to her groin.  
  
Her breath stuttered in her chest and she swallowed. God, how she wanted him.  
   
She was trying to decide how long she should let him sleep before she rolled over to try to encourage him to put that morning erection to good use when her cellphone chirped its tinny little chime. All at once, she pulled out of his grasp and sat bolt upright in bed, peering around the room with bleary morning eyes in search of the source of the noise.  
  
There weren’t many people who knew her cell phone number; she just wasn’t in the habit of giving it out. Her roommate knew it, but she wouldn’t call at this time of day in a million years. Given that it was spring break, she probably wasn’t even conscious yet. That really only left one likely person. Perfect.  
  
Spying her jeans in a crumpled pile near the foot of the bed, she padded over and fished around in the pockets for the phone, prodding the talk button as quickly as she could before the ringing woke Red.  
  
“Daddy?”  
  
“Hey, butterball. How’s your vacation going?”  
  
“It’s been good. Relaxing. Just what I needed.”  
  
“Could you speak up a little, Lizzy? I can barely hear you.”  
  
“Yeah, um… Now’s really not a good time.”  
  
“Why are you whispering?”  
  
“Uh…” Liz winced, brows furrowing. It was times like these she wished she was a morning person. She scrambled to come up with a reasonable excuse that wouldn’t intimate she had a man sleeping in her bed, but her mind was a blank. Unfortunately for her, Sam _was_ a morning person and a bit too quick to catch on for her liking.  
  
“Oh, good Lord, I’m sorry, honey. Pretend I didn’t say anything. You’re a grown woman, it’s none of my business what you—”  
  
“ _Dad_. I’m not…” Behind her, Red reached out and wrapped his arms around her discarded pillow before settling again. She closed her eyes and sighed. “You know I didn’t come up here looking for anything like that.”   
  
“Oh. All right. Good.” A beat, and then, “As long as you don’t close yourself off to the possibility completely.”  
  
Liz let out a nervous giggle. “Geez, dad, make up your mind. You’re gonna give me whiplash.”  
  
“Sorry! You just never know when you might meet someone who’ll change your life, is all.”  
  
Red’s quiet snoring picked up in volume a bit; Liz’s eyes widened in horror and she made a beeline for the bathroom, praying the reception would hold out.  
  
“Actually, it’s funny you should say that,” she said, pulling the door shut silently behind her. “I ran into a friend of yours the other day.”  
  
“Really? A friend of mine?”  
  
“Mmhmm. He said his name was Red something or other.”  
  
It took Sam a beat too long to respond. “Red Reddington?”  
  
“That sounds right.”   
  
“Wow,” Sam said, with enthusiasm he obviously didn’t feel. He sounded more than a little ill at ease. She could picture him scratching at his scruffy jaw, struggling to come up with something to say. “Reddington, huh?”  
  
“Yeah. We ended up trapped out on the patio together when the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night and we got to talking. How come you never told me about him? He’s quite the conversationalist.”  
  
“That he is, butterball, that he is. Although I can’t imagine how on earth I came up in conversation.”  
  
“Oh, you know how it goes. You gotta fill the time somehow. You start out talking about the weather and then one thing leads to another and, well… the rest is history. I think we’ll have a lot to talk about when I get home after graduation.”  
  
“That sounds ominous. Should I be worried?”  
  
Liz snorted. “Why, do you think you should be?”   
  
“Well, I—“  
  
A sudden, muffled, _‘Lizzy?’_ from the other side of the door made her jump and cut Sam off with a quick excuse.   
  
“Dad, I’m really sorry, but I’ve gotta go or I’ll miss breakfast. Have a good day!”   
  
Liz hung up her phone with a snap and poked her head into the hotel room. Red was still lying down, the bedsheets and blankets tangled around his denim-clad legs. How he managed to sleep well in his jeans she had no idea.  
  
He noticed her in the doorway and smiled, blinking up at her slowly as if she was the morning sun itself; she couldn’t help but return his smile. He reminded her of a drowsy cat stretching in the sunshine.  
  
“Hey. Good morning, sleepyhead.”  
  
“Mmm. Yes, it is.” He sighed, heavy, contented, happy to watch her while she rounded the bed to climb back in and settle next to him again. “God, you’re beautiful,” he said, simple, emphatic, like he didn’t have an ulterior motive for saying it—it was just an observation, a statement of fact. Her chest tightened.  
  
“You’re not so bad yourself.” He watched, intrigued, as she brought her hand up to run her fingers through his hair. “Bed head and all.”  
  
He huffed a laugh, ruffling his own hair self-consciously. Tension coiled in her stomach, lower, the longer he held her gaze.  
  
When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. His response was hesitant at first, but he quickly melted into her, putting them fast on track to match the intensity they reached the previous night, before Red’s crisis of conscience. Some of the anxiety that weighed on her since she woke up began to lift. He still wanted her. That much she was sure of. No one kissed like he kissed if they didn’t want someone.   
  
Much to her dismay, his stomach growled loud enough for both of them to hear. Reluctantly, she pulled back. The skin of his hands—rough in places, smooth in others—felt electric against her cheek, her jaw, her neck, and she was loath to put distance between them again.   
  
“We should really get moving if we’re going to make breakfast.”  
  
He hummed his agreement as he followed his hands with his lips, kissing his way down her throat.  
  
“How hungry are you?” she asked, distractedly.   
  
“Famished,” he said, barely taking his mouth off her long enough to form the word. He sucked at the base of her neck, raising what felt like it would be a significant hickey.  
  
“Are we still talking about food?” A noncommittal noise was her only answer. Taking that as a good sign, she began to run her hands down his body in turn, tracing her fingers over smooth skin, shiny scar tissue, hair that grew coarser the lower she went. She got as far as his waistband before he shied his hips away from her questing hands.  
  
Taking deep, harsh breaths through his nose, he rested his forehead against her shoulder. “Uh. I’m thinking with the wrong head.”  
  
“That’s fine with me.”  
  
“Lizzy…”  
  
“Tell me something. Would we even be having this conversation if we had a less complicated history? Or would you have taken me to bed last night? Because I wanted you to before all that came out and I still do.” She cupped his face, coaxed his head up so she could search his eyes. “Come on, Red. You’ve been honest with me so far—almost to a fault. Tell me the truth.”   
  
“I would have taken you to bed,” he admitted, after a long, tense moment.  
  
“Do you still want to?”  
  
“God help us, yes, of course I do.”  
  
“Then I don’t see what the problem is.” He opened his mouth to argue his point, but she cut him off. “Look, I’m going to lay it all out in black and white: This has nothing to do with you saving my life. I’m attracted to you. I’ve been attracted to you since the other night on the patio. And I’m pretty sure you’re attracted to me. If you’re game, I’d really like to explore that. After all, what is spring break for if not experimenting?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sam will have kittens if he ever finds out,” Red said, emphatic. Liz broke out in a grin and he offered her a tentative, lopsided one in return, which she took as a green light to reach for his jeans again. He watched her struggle to work open the buttons on his fly, sucked in a breath through his teeth as she grazed him through his jeans, the tightness of the material over his groin making her task a tricky one. “Or he’ll kill me. Just flat out kill me. With his bare hands.”

“Sam will have kittens if he ever finds out,” Red said, emphatic. Liz broke out in a grin and he offered her a tentative, lopsided one in return, which she took as a green light to reach for his jeans again. He watched her struggle to work open the buttons on his fly, sucked in a breath through his teeth as she grazed him through his jeans, the tightness of the material over his groin making her task a tricky one. “Or he’ll kill me. Just flat out kill me. With his bare hands.”  
  
The threat of imminent death did little to dissuade him. When the teasing torture of her attempts became too much for him to bear, he took over unbuttoning his jeans and pushed them down his legs himself, leaving him like he had been the night on the patio—wearing nothing but his boxer briefs. They were, like all his clothing, _very_ nice. Not the kind that came in a pack of seven at Walmart for twenty bucks, that’s for sure.   
  
Liz made herself tear her gaze away to meet his eyes. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Sam never told me the truth about where I came from, he can deal with me having a secret or two of my own. The irony is that both of our secrets will be you.” She leaned forward so she could whisper in his ear. “Besides,” she said, “you could take him in a fight.”  
  
A surprised bark of laughter escaped him. “I could, but I wouldn’t.”  
  
She hooked a leg over his hip, and he steadied her with hands braced against her thighs, her ass. Her breath caught at the intensity of heat against heat through the thin layers of their clothing. She rocked against him experimentally, the spark of pleasure sending her heart rate speeding in an upward spiral. She rocked again.  
  
“I dreamt of you touching me like this,” she said absently, growing more breathless with every roll of her hips; Red met her movements with a low moan in the back of his throat.  
  
“Did you?” His voice was rough, deeper than before.  
  
“Last night. Yesterday afternoon. The night before last. My imagination doesn’t do it justice,” she said, and then he captured her lips in a sudden, searing kiss, his hands kneading her ass as they continued to grind against each other.   
  
There was something thrilling about doing this with him even with clothes between them. It wasn’t enough, but it _could_ be. She pulled him tightly to her, her fingers fitting into the grooves engraved in his skin by the fire so long ago.   
  
So far, she had been extremely frank about what she wanted from him, with exceptional results. None of what she said had been terribly personal, however, nor had it highlighted her previous experiences or lack thereof. While she certainly wasn’t a virgin, the last thing she needed was to scare him off because he thought she was. That noble streak of his was a bitch. Still, she wanted him to know somehow that this, being here with him, was different. She broke the kiss and bit her lip, weighing how important it was to share with him what she wanted to say.   
  
He leaned back, eyes darting around her face. “Is something wrong?”   
  
“No. Nothing’s wrong. Not at all.” When she rested her hand against his cheek he turned, pressed his lips to her palm. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. “I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone as much as I’ve wanted you. I didn’t know I _could_.”   
  
His hands slid up to her waist and froze, a faint frown on his face. “Please tell me I’m right to assume you’ve done this before?”  
  
Liz nodded. “It’s been a while,” she explained, “but yeah.” The last guy she’d been with had turned out to be a douche bag of the highest order. Once he got what he wanted from her, he wouldn’t give her the time of day anymore. If she had been in a less vulnerable place emotionally at the time, she never would have fallen for his superficial charm in the first place. She shook herself before she wandered too far down _that_ mental path. In the end, he hadn’t even been worth the sex. “It’s just no one else has ever made me feel this… good.”  
  
Red bit back a growl and said, “Well, you’re in for a treat, then. We’ve barely gotten started.”   
  
Soon they were kissing again, deep and fierce. He rolled them so she lay on her back, her smaller frame surrounded, enveloped by his larger one. She tried to hold him to her, to prolong the delicious contact, but he shifted his way down the bed, dropping tiny teasing kisses and nuzzling her through her clothing as he went.   
  
He hooked his fingers around the waistband of her boy shorts and began to slide them down her legs at an agonizing, glacial pace. Pulling them free, he smoothed his hands up her calves, gently coaxing her legs apart. His pupils widened at the sight that met him, the stormy sea green of his iris almost too thin to see even in the early afternoon light, but instead of feeling exposed or uncomfortable under his heated gaze, she felt invigorated. A pleasant shiver ran through her.    
  
“God, Lizzy,” he said; she could feel his breath on her as he spoke, warm and cool and tantalizing all at once. “You really are wet for me.”  
  
“I _told_ you—“ He cut off her reassertion with a sudden, delicate swipe of his tongue, startling a yelp out of her as she bucked her hips in surprise. It was an indescribable amalgamation of sensations, some of them just this side of unpleasant, but there was enough of the promise of something _really good_ to make her curious for him to continue.  
  
He looked up at her from between her legs, eyes hungry with anticipation, waiting for her next move.  
  
“Do that again,” she breathed. He bent his head, eager, and ran his tongue over her again. She gasped and clutched his head instinctively. “Slower. More pressure— _ahh_.” He pressed first one finger inside her, then two, and she clenched herself around them, craving fullness, friction. She twined her fingers into the hair at the back of his head, rolling her hips in time with his strokes.   
  
His resonant, murmured moans spurred her on, driving her to even greater heights of arousal. He _enjoyed_ this. More than enjoyed it. She really should hang onto him so she’d never have to try to convince another guy that turnabout was fair play.  
  
Then he fastened his lips around her and sucked. She nearly screamed, tipping right over the edge into ecstasy.   
  
After, Liz lay boneless, panting, as she slowly came back to herself, eyes wide with shock at the intensity of her climax. “Oh my god.”  
  
Red stretched out next to her, propping himself up on an elbow as he casually licked his fingers clean. “Good?”   
  
She slapped his shoulder weakly. “Good? You’re joking. Oh my _god_ , of course it was good. This is already the best sex I’ve ever had.”    
  
He shook his head in dismay. “College boys should be ashamed of themselves. They spend so much time masturbating to internet porn, by the time they get a chance to be with a real woman, they have no idea what to do with her.”  
  
“It’s not all their fault. I actually want _you_. Not just the intimacy, or the release. Although, you do believe in foreplay, so that’s a plus.” He huffed a laugh, smiling broad enough his face crinkled around his eyes.  
  
“I’m flattered,” he said. Her stomach fluttered.   
  
“Come here.” She reached out a still-shaky hand and once he was close enough, she wrapped it around the back of his neck and pulled herself towards him to close the distance between them again. They were both smiling when she kissed him. It was silly and awkward and she could taste herself on his lips, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.  
  
Trailing her free hand down his chest and abdomen, she palmed him through his boxer-briefs, earning herself a heartfelt groan.   
  
“These”—she snapped his waistband—“need to go.”  
  
He tilted his hips back so she had room to peel the underwear down his legs, careful to clear his erection, and he kicked them off the rest of the way.   
  
Finally able to observe him in all his glory, Liz swallowed hard and took him into her hand, curious fingers stroking his length, coaxing liquid to bead at the tip. He hummed his pleasure, barely able to keep himself from thrusting into her hand.  
  
“Do you have anything…?” he asked, his voice strained.  
  
Reluctantly, she let him slip from her grasp. “Top drawer, right nightstand.”  
  
Red settled back on his haunches, shaking the jumbo box of condoms to draw her attention away from his groin. He raised an eyebrow and said, “When you plan a seduction, you certainly come prepared.”   
  
“Not really. My roommate must’ve shoved the box in my suitcase as a joke, I didn’t find it until I was cleaning up the room last night. Otherwise I would’ve had to brave the gift shop.”  
  
“If you timed it right, you could’ve given that nosy old woman from breakfast a heart attack.”  
  
He pulled out one of the foil packets, tossed the box in the drawer, and slid it shut before turning to rest with his back against the pillows, much to Liz’s surprise.  
  
“I’d like to see you, if that’s all right.” A beat, and then, “Sometimes it’s better for someone who’s less experienced, because you have control over the pace, the angle, the depth…” He must have mistook her expression for discomfit because he immediately backpedaled. “If you’d rather not—“  
  
“No, I… All right.”   
  
She knelt up to straddle his thighs and, throwing caution to the wind, pulled her shirt over her head in one quick movement. His eyes dropped to take in her breasts and she let out the breath she’d been holding when she saw his own breathing falter.  
  
He ran his hands up her sides, caressing, exploring, taking extra care with her nipples; she pressed herself into his hands, reveling in the sensation of the rough-and-smooth of his skin against her sensitive flesh. After a few intoxicating moments, he lay the flat of one hand over her heart, no doubt feeling how fiercely it pounded. She mirrored him, placing her hand over his heart as well. Purposefully, he began to regulate his breathing, taking slow, full breaths that slowed his heartbeat in turn. She found herself matching him, the fog of lust lifting just a bit.   
  
“Tell me you’re sure,” he said.  
  
“Don’t you think we’re sort of past the point of no return here?”  
  
“No, Lizzy. Never that.” The earnest expression on his face made her heart ache.  
  
“I’ve never been more sure.”  
  
An array of emotions flickered across his features. With a solemn smile, he leaned up and captured her lips, pulling away only when their need, their desire became too great, to tear open the little packet and roll the condom onto his erection. He steadied her as she lowered herself onto him finally, twin noises of relief on their lips, half-sigh, half-moan.   
  
There in that hotel room, wrapped around his cock, she felt alive, truly alive, for the first time in a very long time. He’d saved her before, once upon a time; it seemed only fitting that he did so again.


	6. Chapter 6

“Well, aren’t you adorable…” Liz came up behind Red while he examined himself in the little tabletop mirror in the gift shop; he had traded his fedora for a knit cap with the name of the hotel emblazoned around the brim in a rather unfortunate color combination.  
  
“Not exactly the word I’d use for these,” he said, “except…” He wrapped a souvenir scarf in a heinous plaid around her neck and stepped back to admire his handiwork. “OK, maybe I see your point.”  
  
By some miracle, they actually made it down to breakfast that morning. The kid who usually brought up their room service tray must have been mourning the loss of Red’s generous tip.  
  
“Why do they even make these things, do you think?” she asked, adjusting her scarf in the mirror. She and Red certainly made an absurd looking pair, him with his impeccable three-piece suit and clashing hat, her with her well-loved, tastefully neutral college sweater and jeans and that terrible scarf.  
  
“I think the real question is why do people buy them? They’re ugly as sin,” he said. “I’m sure there’s some kind of marketing strategy behind it. Make them as garish as humanly possible so whenever you see them you’ll reminisce about the good times you had here and realize this is the only place on earth you can wear the damn things without feeling like an idiot, so you’ll obviously have to come back.”  
  
“Here,” Liz said, twisting a scarf around his neck in return. “This one almost matches the hat.”  
  
He raised an eyebrow. “Close but no cigar,” he quipped.  
  
The clerk at the register became more antsy by the minute while he watched the two of them poke fun at the clothing; he finally decided to round the counter and approach them.  
  
“May I help you with anything, sir? Ma’am?”  
  
“Oh, no, we’re just browsing, thanks.”  
  
He eyed them suspiciously, obviously wanting to comment further, but he nodded with a forced smile and reluctantly headed back to his post.  
  
“We’re making him uncomfortable,” Liz whispered.  
  
“I can’t imagine why. At least we’re not trying on the sweatpants.”  
  
She pulled him towards her by the ends of the scarf and pressed her lips to his, quickly discovering just how difficult it was to maintain a kiss while giggling.  
  
“Sir, ma’am, please,” said the clerk, annoyed. “If you’re not going to buy anything, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”  
  
Red looked at him over Liz’s shoulder with a wicked glint in his eye. Before she knew it, they were walking back to their rooms laden down with gift shop bags filled to the brim with everything they’d been wearing and more.  
  
“I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do with all these ugly stocking caps. Did you really have to buy one in every color?”  
  
Red shrugged. “Give them out as souvenirs,” he said.  


* * *

  
  
Red always had a book with him, either some classic or other, or something in Russian or French. In quiet moments, he would read passages aloud to Liz, translating on the fly; he was fluent, as far as she could tell. Of course, he could have been talking nonsense for all she knew, but the fire in her belly didn’t care in the slightest. She always had a weak spot for intelligent men, as her secret crushes on more than one professor attested to.  
  
Tonight’s book sat atop the morning paper, which was folded open to an unfinished crossword puzzle on the nightstand Liz had started to jokingly think of as Red’s, both long since cast aside.  
  
Purples, pinks, and oranges painted the sky above the lake and reflected off the water, bathing Liz’s hotel room in a warm, fading light. A tray awaiting empty room service dishes lay on the sideboard, a bottle of wine with half-drunk glasses abandoned next to it. Matching plush, terry robes were draped over the footboard of Liz’s big bed, forgotten.  
  
Liz and Red lay back to front in the center of the bed, making lazy, leisurely love as the sun set over the lake. They hadn’t ventured any further than the patio or either of their rooms in two days.  
  
At the moment, Red stayed poised with just the tip of himself inside her, teasing her, stimulating but not filling her. She wanted desperately to move her hips, to seat him deeper, but their positioning wouldn’t allow it, not with one of his arms holding her still while his free hand busied itself between her legs. There was a method to his madness, that much she was sure of, but he was trying her patience nonetheless.  
  
Having no control over the movement of anything but his skillful fingers, she settled for steering his hand how and where she wanted it, better directing the speed and motion of his stroking. Just as it seemed like he properly grasped the movement that would eventually push her over the edge, he surged into her again and she came apart, swift and unexpected. He rode out her climax with short, deliberate thrusts, prolonging her release even as he sought his own.  
  
After, they collapsed next to each other on their stomachs, panting. Red reached out a shaky hand to caress her cheek; he smiled when she pressed a kiss to the pad of his thumb, his eyes shining in the dying light.  
  
Liz sighed, contented. She half-suspected Red had made it his personal mission to make their way through that ridiculous box of condoms before the week was out.  


* * *

  
  
Late that night, Liz and Red lay sprawled out next to each other, taking turns eating forkfuls of a slice of the hotel’s famous flourless chocolate cake. How Red managed to convince the kitchen to send it up well past room service hours, she didn’t know. _Probably bribery_ , she thought, and stifled a giggle.  
  
As far as Liz was concerned, her infatuation with Red was becoming troublesome, because she was starting to feel in it the potential for more. It was absurd, really.  She liked to consider herself a realist, not a romantic, but they’d been linked to each other for almost two decades, and maybe there was a reason for it. She might have felt foolish if he didn’t seem to find her equally as fascinating.  
  
Being the focus of his attention was flattering, to say the least. His genuine interest in her as a person was a breath of fresh air, his interest in _her_ interests, in her hopes and dreams, in her. She didn’t experience that terribly often. Most people found her aspirations intimidating. Red, however, was nothing if not encouraging.  
  
“How did you become interested in criminal profiling?”  
  
Liz shrugged. “I know it seems strange, but I’ve always been drawn to it. It comes naturally to me. Don’t ask me what that means.”  
  
Red huffed a laugh; he held up the last morsel of cake for her to eat off his fork. Liz savored the rich, decadent bite, feeling the heat of his gaze on her lips as she licked them.  
  
“I graduate in May, so after that I just have grad school and about a thousand hours of experience to rack up before I can even really try for the Academy.”  
  
“They’d be lucky to have you. You’re obviously a very driven, dedicated young woman.”  
  
“That’s the polite way to put it.” At his questioning glance, she explained, “Most people just call me obsessed.”  
  
“You know what you want in life and you won’t stop until you get it. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s something to be proud of.” He ran his finger around the plate, gathering errant cake crumbs and chocolate sauce before licking it clean, slow and thorough. Liz threaded her fingers through the hair at the back of his head and covered his lips with hers.  
  
“I know a thing or two about criminals myself, you know,” he said, planting a trail of lingering kisses down the arch of her neck. “You can pick my brain if you’d like to. It’s not really the kind of stuff that comes up on the curriculum in undergrad.”  
  
Liz bit back a moan; she had a feeling she wouldn’t have daydreamed during a single class if he had been the one lecturing. Or perhaps she would have, but the subject matter of the daydreams would have been… different.  
  
“Sam’s hinted around that my biological father might have been a criminal.” He looked up sharply, met her gaze and held it. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”  
  
“I might.”  
  
“Was that why you were there that night? Because he was a criminal?”  
  
Red was silent for a long, heavy moment. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re going into the wrong field.”  
  
Liz swallowed hard. That was a yes. Unspoken, but clear as day all the same.  


* * *

  
  
Saturday arrived, and with it came a strange sense of melancholy, of trepidation. Tomorrow marked the last day of spring break and Liz would have to wake up bright and early to catch the Greyhound back to school.  
  
Tonight would be the last night she could spend with Red.  
  
In the beginning, Liz thought she’d be satisfied with a fling. She never expected a fling to involve becoming this attached. Just the thought of going back to school and everyday life left her at a loss.  
  
They sat tucked in their quiet corner of the restaurant, drinks untouched on the table between them.  
  
“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I know this probably sounds cheesy, but I’ve enjoyed every last minute I’ve spent with you this week. I don’t want it to end.”  
  
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because I don’t want it to end either.”  
  
Liz swallowed around a lump in her throat. “What is this? What are we doing?”  
  
“I think we’re trying to say goodbye,” he said with a frown, “and failing miserably.”  
  
_I think we might be falling in love_ , she thought, forlornly. She didn’t dare voice it. She took some comfort in the fact that he seemed to be struggling with this just as badly as she was.  
  
Suddenly struck with an idea, Liz scrounged around in her bag for a pen. “Here,” she said, and scrawled out her cell number and her email address on her cocktail napkin and handed it to him. Red’s eyes moved over the numbers and letters as he studied the napkin so intently she was convinced he was committing the information to memory on the off-chance he might lose it.  
  
“Can I borrow that for a minute?” he asked, already reaching for her pen. He jotted down a number on his own napkin and slid it across the table. “It might show up funny on your caller ID,” he said. She quickly tucked the napkin into her bag before she could forget.  
  
She felt like she could breathe for the first time that day.  
  
He raised his glass, waited for her to do the same. Taking a slow, deep breath, he met her eyes. “To the future,” he toasted, clinking his glass against hers.

“Tastes like spring, doesn’t it?”


	7. Chapter 7

Once Liz arrived back at school, she settled as well as she could into her old day to day life, but it was easier said than done. She felt like she was stuck in a strange place in her classes, somewhere between a mad dash to complete the remaining coursework and an interminable winding down with very little new information to keep her interest. Or keep her mind off of Red.  
  
When loneliness inevitably set in, she did what she did best and threw herself even further into her work despite everything. Loneliness she understood. She could deal with loneliness. It was the longing that had her baffled. How, exactly, had she become so attached to Red so quickly? Why did it feel like she had an empty space in her chest now that hadn’t existed until she left him? Or if it had existed before then, why did she never notice it?  
  
Liz’s professors were more impressed with her work ethic than ever before and while their praise felt good, it wasn’t as fulfilling as it once was. She was so ready to be finished with her undergrad degree, to have time to be out in the world doing some good. Sure, she’d still have grad school and all that came with it, but her world on campus was starting to feel oppressively small.  
  
She ended up spending more than one Friday night parked on the sofa in front of the TV with her phone in one hand and a certain cocktail napkin clutched in the other. For some reason, she was having a terrible time trying to work up the nerve to just call Red, to break the ice and put an end to at least that part of the limbo she found herself in.  
  
(Her roommate Jess poked fun at her for her idea of Friday night entertainment, but, really, she’d been teasing her about her ‘mystery man’ ever since she asked for the box of condoms back and Liz had been unable to produce it. Truth be told, she just assumed Liz had either lost it or left it back at the hotel by accident. If only she knew…)  
  
Then again, Red could just as easily pick up the phone to call _her_ and put her out of her misery all the same, but he didn’t. Weeks went by with no contact initiated by either of them, the possible reasons for the silence on his end a nagging worry at the back of her mind. That is until the fateful Wednesday when her cell phone rang out of the blue in the middle of Jess’s favorite TV show.  
  
Both Liz and Jess eyed the phone like it might explode for a few tinny rings.  
  
“Nick’s Pizza?” Jess asked, brows furrowed.  
  
Liz shrugged and snatched it up, answering with a uncertain, “Hello?”  
  
“ _Lizzy_ ,” came the voice on the other end, rough and thick with emotion.  
  
She was on her feet and speeding off into her room in a flash; she closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. “Red,” she breathed. “It’s good to hear your voice.”  
  
“I’m a damn coward, sweetheart. I should have called weeks ago.” He sounded so disappointed in himself, it made her chest ache.  
  
“Well, I’m just as bad, aren’t I?” Quickly, before he could argue and put himself down even more, she asked, “How have you been?”  
  
“Good. Fine. Better now,” he said, awkward and stilted; he coughed to clear his throat. “How about you? How are your classes?”  
  
Liz snorted, starting to relax at long last. She pushed herself off the door and sat down on her bed. “Funny you should ask…”    
  


* * *

  
  
Her blaring alarm clock woke her the next morning before Liz even realized she had fallen asleep. She peeled her phone—battery long since dead—from her cheek, massaging the indentations the buttons had left in the flesh there.  
  
She dug through her bag for that wrinkled old napkin and flattened it out on her desk. Quickly scrawling ‘Nick’s Pizza’ above the phone number, she pinned it to her cork board, scooped up her notebook, and sprinted off to class with a spring in her step.  
  
Later, once her phone was charged, she would find a voicemail from Red, apologizing for falling asleep on her and promising to call again over the weekend. _“And if you ever need anything, Lizzy, anything at all, please don’t hesitate to call. No matter when it is, or how busy you think I might be, or if you think I won’t have the time. I’ll make time for you, I’ll always make time for you. I want you to know that.”_  
  


* * *

  
  
“I’m so jealous, Liz. All you’ve got to do is hear back about your thesis and you’re home free.”  
  
“Yeah, unless they think it’s crap.”  
  
“Come on, nothing you write is crap. Meanwhile, I’m still stuck here for another year and the worst part is, I won’t even have you here with me anymore.”  
  
“Well, you never know, there’s a first time for everything, it could be crap.”  
  
Jess scoffed. “Believe me, you have nothing to worry about. I read it, it’s brilliant. You’re gonna blow them all out of the water, like you usually do. Hell, they could ask you to _teach_ most of your courses and you’d be fine.” Suddenly, she stopped short on the sidewalk and it was all Liz could do not to barrel right into her. “Speaking of fine… who is _that?_ ”  
  
Liz followed her roommate’s gaze to find a man reading a newspaper on the concrete steps that lead to the quad—an elegant, well-dressed, _familiar_ man. He must have felt their attention because she only just managed to finish her perusal of him in time for him to look up and lock eyes with her; his face broke out into a wide grin and she couldn’t help smiling in return. He folded his newspaper and stood, eager excitement infusing every inch of his body, making him seem much younger than he was. Like a boy seeing his date in her prom dress for the first time.  
  
“Earth to Liz, hello?” Liz flinched away from Jess’s hand waving in front of her face. “Do you know him? Who is he?” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth while Red approached.  
  
Liz bit her lip. “Remember how you convinced yourself I had a fling over spring break?”  
  
“You’re kidding.” She gave him a once over. “To hell with the beach, remind me to head to the mountains for vacation from now on.”  
  
“Jess, you have a boyfriend.”  
  
“A boyfriend who’s destined for teacher’s wages and thinks wearing socks with sandals is a fashion statement. I could trade up.”  
  
“You’re awful.”  
  
“Good afternoon, ladies.”  
  
“Hey.”  
  
“Hello, Lizzy,” he said, his voice a warm rumble. He leaned in and gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek. “You look wonderful today.”  
  
“I’m wearing sweats, Red. And I haven’t showered in two days.”  
  
“Even so, you are a sight for sore eyes. Just being near you again”—he sighed, simply drinking her in and smiling like he couldn’t believe she was real—“I can feel my stress levels dropping. I missed you.”  
  
Damn him. He had a knack for an odd sort of sincerity that caught her in the chest and burned. She grabbed hold of his lapel before he could step back out of reach and kissed him properly. “I missed you, too.” She ran her hand up to cup his face and he relaxed under her touch, sure now of his welcome. He kissed her again, confident, unhurried. God, she really had missed him.  
  
The sound of a throat clearing behind them reminded them they weren’t alone. Jess’s eyebrows had taken up residence high on her forehead as she stared at Liz expectantly. She blushed as red as his name.  
  
“Sorry, um… Jess, this is Red. Red, Jess.” They shook hands.  
  
“Nice to finally meet you, Red. I’d love to say I’ve heard a lot about you but this one”—she poked Liz in the ribs—“decided to keep you as her dirty little secret ever since spring break.”  
  
“Hey, you could’ve figured out something was going on all those times I’d get a call from a wrong number and disappear for hours.”  
  
“ _He’s_ Nick’s Pizza?”  
  
“Come on, Jess, really?”  
  
“Sorry, I’m just trying to wrap my mind around this. Who the hell has a top secret boyfriend in real life? Especially one who uses a fake phone number and dresses like a cross between an Old Hollywood movie star and James Bond.”  
  
“Well, when you put it that way…” Liz exchanged a quick glance with Red, who shrugged his shoulders, palmed his hat onto his head with a flourish, and struck a rakish pose.  
  
“Mmm, she does have a point.”  
  
Jess looked back and forth between them and cracked a smile. “OK, I like him,” she said, only to be interrupted by the trilling chime of her cell phone ringing. “Annnd that’ll be Mike.”  
  
Liz breathed a sigh of relief; she felt Red lace their fingers together and lift her hand to press his lips against the back of it. Giving her hand one final squeeze before letting go, he asked, “So, where were you two headed before I intercepted you?”  
  
“Back to our apartment. You can walk with us if you want, it’s only a couple blocks.”  
  
“I feel like I should be offering to carry your bag,” he said quietly as he shuffled along next to her, not fifteen feet into their short journey. This strange but endearing shyness was such a pleasant contrast to the gregarious persona she knew he favored in public.  
  
“Here.” She slid the strap off her shoulder and held it out for him; he took it with an adorable, ducking grin and slipped it over his own shoulder and across his chest.  
  
The rest of the walk was nothing but stolen glances and involuntary smiles set to the backdrop of Jess’s conversation, which seemed like nothing but distant white noise to the two of them, caught up in each other as they were. They were lucky the trip was as short as it was; any longer and the amount of attention they paid each other instead of their surroundings would’ve likely earned them an unseen obstacle or two to stumble over. 


	8. Chapter 8

Liz never really expected Red to see her crappy little college apartment. Most of her daydreams and fantasies involving him in the past couple months, be they innocent or prurient, took place either in their hotel or at some imagined place her mind conjured up in the moment rather than here.  
  
It was funny how out of place he looked lounging on the ratty old sofa, what with his vest and his hat and his Italian leather shoes. He didn’t, however, _feel_ out of place, which went a long way towards reassuring Liz that she needn’t feel self-conscious about her space. He seemed perfectly comfortable sitting there, sipping the cheap beer Jess offered him. Liz took a hesitant sip from her own bottle and frowned. At least it was cold.  
  
Red could tell she was nervous, that much was obvious. She sat perched on the edge of the coffee table in front of him, idly picking at the damp label on her beer bottle. He bumped his leg against hers gently to get her attention and asked about her classes.  
  
She breathed a sigh of relief even as she started babbling as she was wont to do, but again, he seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, rather than simply polite. It worked to defuse the tension at any rate, which was surely his intention.  
  
Liz had really missed being able to watch Red while they spoke; his facial expressions added layers of nuance to a conversation, and a wealth of reactions that just didn’t come across as clearly over the phone. To be perfectly honest, she missed being able to see him, full stop.  
  
And Red? Well. He always looked at her like she was the loveliest, most captivating woman in the world. She missed _that_ , too.  
  
“Well, now that you know everything there is to know about my finals,” she said, reaching out to rest her hand on his knee, “what have you been up to?”  
  
He tilted his head to the side and regarded her with a faint, enigmatic smile. “Oh, a little of this and a little of that, tying up a few loose ends.”  
  
Liz quirked an eyebrow at his non-answer and his smile broadened. She’d let him have his cryptic fun in front of Jess, but she was sure she’d weasel some details out of him sooner or later, when they were alone.  
  
“What do you do, Red?” Jess asked; Liz cringed internally. She should’ve expected that.  
  
“I dabble in a lot of things,” he said, slowly dragging his gaze away from Liz like it took considerable effort. “You can call me a world traveler if you need something concrete.”  
  
“A world traveler, huh? You keep that up, I’m gonna start to suspect you really are a spy.”  
  
Liz shot Red a quick glance to try to gauge how he felt about Jess hitting so close to the mark. He raised his brows and gave an almost imperceptible shrug.  
  
“Jess watches too much TV,” she said. Jess balled up her napkin and threw it at her.  
  


* * *

  
  
Over the course of the afternoon, Liz found her way to sit on the couch next to Red and watched with barely concealed amusement as Jess gained some firsthand experience with Red-the-Storyteller. He regaled them with tales of his ‘world traveling’—often harrowing adventures so unbelievable that Liz was convinced they were either embellished within an inch of his life or actual stone-cold fact. She couldn’t decide which was more likely.  
  
“I thought we were going to have to reenact that scene from _Airplane!_ You know, ‘All right now, everybody, get in crash positions.’” He started to bend himself in an absurd way to demonstrate, but froze at the confusion on their faces. “What? Nothing? Damn. I loved that movie when I was in school.”  
  
Liz patted his thigh, too lingering to be truly reassuring. “Don’t worry, Red, I promise you can introduce me to all your old movies someday. Was it in black and white?” she teased.  
   
“Oh, hush, you,” he said, and gave her wandering hand a warning squeeze. If his cheeks weren’t already pink from the alcohol, she thought he might’ve blushed. She sighed, content, and leaned against him.  
  
Red’s unexpected visit might have started awkwardly, but now Liz was pleasantly tipsy and she was worried if he didn’t leave soon, she’d end up draped over his lap, kissing her way across his smooth, rosy cheeks, roommate or no.  
  
As if reading her thoughts, Red gently began to extricate himself from her embrace and the questionable support of the broken-down sofa. “Well, I’d like to thank you two for a lovely afternoon. It was nice to meet you, Jess.”  
  
“Likewise,” she said, raising her almost empty beer bottle.  
  
“Do you mind if I use your bathroom before I go? I came straight from the airport and what with the beer and all…”  
  
“Say no more, go right ahead.”  
  
“Red, hang on a second.” Liz ushered him into the hall just outside the bathroom, not quite out of earshot from Jess, but it would have to do. “What’s going on? Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but if you’re in the area for business or whatever…”  
  
He shook his head. “I’m here for you, Lizzy. If you’ll have me, that is.”  
  
“I’ll have you,” she said at once, and blushed at the accidental double entendre; he grinned and tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “But your work—“  
  
“My schedule’s completely clear for two weeks. I’d love to spend some of that time with you. Maybe stick around for graduation.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb, a small, sad smile curving his mouth. “Call me melodramatic, but lately I’ve found the appeal of solitude to be sorely lacking.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” she said. “You do realize my dad’ll be here for graduation, too, right?”  
  
“Mmm, well, looks like that bridge is here. Why don’t we cross it?” He gave her a quick peck on the lips and ducked into the bathroom.  
  
When Liz turned around, Jess was watching her with poorly disguised interest. “Are the two of you speaking in code?”  
  
“Sort of,” she said, with a grimace. Jess waited expectantly for her to elaborate. “It turns out he and my dad know each other. We haven’t decided how we’re gonna tell him yet. About us.”  
  
“So this is serious.”  
  
“I don’t know. I mean, I guess.”  
  
“Meeting the parents sounds like a pretty serious step to me. And besides, you let him call you Lizzy!”  
  
“I didn’t let him, he just sort of… started.”  
  
“And you haven’t killed him for it!”  
  
“God, Jess, dramatic much?”  
  


* * *

  
  
It was only once they were standing on the sidewalk outside her apartment that Liz remembered Red had been on foot when she had run into him at the quad. He must be parked a mile away, in one of the visitor lots back on campus. She squinted down the street in the late afternoon sun.    
  
“Do you need me to walk you back to your car?”  
  
“I think I can manage from here. It’ll do me good to stretch my legs.” He took a slow, controlled breath and turned to catch her eye. “I realize this has all been extremely short notice, but… how soon can I see you again?”  
  
“How about tonight?” she asked, not caring in the slightest if she came across as overly eager. He was the one who flew halfway around the world just to see her, after all. “We could have dinner.”  
  
He had loosened his tie at some point during the afternoon and the top button on his dress shirt was undone. Liz couldn’t help staring at the vee of exposed skin, remembering what it was like to press her lips there, to taste him, to feel the scratch of his chest hair against her own skin. Her mouth watered.  
  
Her thoughts must’ve shown on her face because his voice was pitched low enough when he asked _“Does eight sound good?”_ that her stomach clenched and a rush of warmth flooded her.  
  
“Huh? Oh, yeah, right, eight. Eight’s good.”  
  
“Eight it is, then,” he said, and with a wink, added, “Save your appetite.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Jess’s eyes widened comically. “Oh my God!”  
  
“Oh, geez. What now?”  
  
“What if he’s here to propose?”  
  
Liz shook her head. Sometimes Jess reminded her of someone who stepped right out of a Jane Austen novel. She had been providing a running commentary while Liz rifled through her dresser and closet in search of something to wear to dinner, coming up with scenarios to explain Red’s impromptu visit, each more unlikely than the last.  
  
“Now you’re being ridiculous. He is definitely not here to propose.”  
  
Jess looked dubious. “Come on, be honest. If he walked back through that door right now and asked you to marry him, would you turn him down?”  
  
“He’s not going to ask.”  
  
“You’re avoiding the question.”  
  
She sighed. “No, Jess. I wouldn’t turn him down. But I wouldn’t accept either! God, I barely know the guy. If he cares about me at all, he’ll understand that. Mark my words, he’ll be back at eight for dinner with no expectations. In fact, you’re welcome to eat with us.”  
  
“Oh, no no, I’m gonna give you guys some alone time. You two might as well have pheromones pouring off you. Speaking of which…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Is he as good in bed as he looks like he is?”    
  
“He has… experience.”  
  
“Experience? Liz, come on, spill.”  
  
Liz swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat. “OK, yes, he’s good in bed. He’s the best I’ve ever had. He makes my toes curl. Does that make you happy?”  
  
“Makes me a little jealous, to be honest. I have to lead Mike around by the nose.”  
  
“That’s not always a bad thing,” she said under her breath.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“It’s not always a bad thing? That way you know you’ll get what you want.”  
  
Jess’s eyebrows rose. “You mean, your Red lets you…”  
  
Liz snorted. _Her_ Red, and marriage proposals to boot. Jess sure adjusted fast.  
  


* * *

  
  
The knock came at precisely eight o’clock, but sounded slightly odd, like the rubber sole of a shoe against the hollow door. Liz peered through the peephole to find Red with several white paper bags stapled shut along the top balanced precariously in his arms. Swiftly, she opened the door and found a couple bags she could pluck from his grasp without toppling the rest and set them down on the counter.  
  
“Geez, Red, did you buy the place out?” she asked, eyeing the growing spread on the tiny kitchen island.  
  
“I remember you saying you loved The Dragon House, but you only get to eat there on special occasions.” He grabbed the last two bags off the stoop and shut the door. Wordlessly, he pulled a couple six-packs of Jess’s beer of choice out of the bags and stashed them in the fridge to repay her for the bottles he drank earlier, with interest. “I think this qualifies as a special occasion.”  
  
“This is a lot of food. A lot.”  
  
“Well, yeah. You never said what you liked best, so I got a little of just about everything.”    
  
“Red, come on. You show up out of the blue, spend time with me and my friend, spoil me with my favorite foods… What the hell is going on? Really.”  
  
“I told you, Lizzy. I’m here for you. I know we talked about maybe getting together after graduation to feel each other out, but I couldn’t wait that long. I had to see you. I…” He reached across the counter and took her hand. “There’s no one else in my life who makes me feel the way I do when I’m with you.”  
  
“How do you feel when you’re with me?” she asked, feeling her chest begin to burn again with the warmth of his strange sincerity.  
  
“Safe,” he said, with a wistful smile. “Wherever you are feels like home. I haven’t… I haven’t had a home in years.” He raised her hand to his mouth and brushed his lips against her knuckles before he turned his back to search her cabinets for dishes.  
  
Heart pounding against her rib cage, she rounded the counter and put a hand on his shoulder; he spun to face her with a jolt. Before he could say anything, she covered his mouth with hers, pressing him bodily back against the counter. His arms came up around her in an instant, his hands cradling her face as he returned the kiss.  
  
“Come with me,” she whispered against his mouth. She tugged him towards the hallway, barely breaking their kisses long enough to guide him around the obstacles in their path. At long last, they stumbled their way through her hastily cleaned bedroom, intent on at least making it to her narrow bed before losing themselves completely in each other.  
  
Liz thanked her lucky stars that she had found a spare set of sheets in her dresser when she pulled him down with her onto the bed. She made quick work of the buttons on his vest; Red stretched to switch off the lamp on her nightstand while she worked on unbuttoning his shirt. Just before the room was bathed in darkness, she caught a glimpse of his bare skin beneath his chest hair.  
  
“Wait.” Liz clicked the light on again. Red tensed against her as she began to push the sides of his shirt open and slid it down over his shoulders. She inhaled sharply. Mottled purple and brown covered his entire torso below his collarbone. Even though the bruises were partially healed, it was still obvious that not long ago, they’d been very bad. Truth be told, it looked like he’d been beaten.  
  
Suddenly regretting how rough she’d been so far, she ghosted her hands over the fading marks, afraid to put too much pressure on them lest she hurt him. “Oh my God, Red. What happened?”  
  
“It’s a long story.” He spoke to some point above her left shoulder, studiously avoiding making eye contact.  
  
“Well, it’s a good thing we’ve got all night, isn’t it?” She combed her fingers through the soft hair on the back of his head, hoping to coax him to look at her. “Hmm?”  
  
He sighed deeply and gave a small nod. “We might as well grab some food after all, then. If you don’t mind.”


	9. Chapter 9

Liz’s gut roiled with a strange mixture of concern and annoyance while she sat watching Red put away the leftover food, in her own kitchen no less. If he didn’t hurry up, she was going to pull out her hair.  
  
She tried to help, but he brushed her off, which might’ve been sweet of him if his motives weren’t more than clear—the longer he took to finish in the kitchen, the longer he could avoid explaining what happened to him. Perhaps he even thought if he delayed the conversation long enough, he could get away without explaining himself at all.  
  
Well, that wasn’t going to happen. She needed to know _something_. It was a battle just to keep her mouth shut until they were safely back in the privacy of her room, because the possibility of Jess coming home in the middle of what she felt would be a long and complicated discussion was very real.  
  
What bothered Liz wasn’t so much that she needed to know the specific details of Red’s ordeal—she understood the need for discretion—it was the fact that he felt he should keep his injuries secret from her completely, so much so that he didn’t even have a quick excuse for them ready. It made her wonder how he expected to hide them from her for two weeks whenever they were intimate. He certainly went for that light switch fast enough, hadn’t he?  
  
Finally, Red picked up the tray he filled for the two of them and carried it back to her room with her trailing close behind; he set it carefully down on her desk and waited until she had settled herself back onto her bed before handing her one of the plates loaded with food. She took it, though her appetite had disappeared a long time ago.  
  
He chose Liz’s desk chair for himself, pulled it up next to her bed and sat with his plate balanced on one knee; he dug into his food with obvious enthusiasm. “Oh my God, Lizzy, you weren’t exaggerating. This is amazing. I wonder if they would—”  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” she cut him off, at the very end of her patience.  
  
The hedonistic pleasure slowly faded from his face. He finished chewing and swallowed, pausing to take a sip of his drink before answering her. “I didn’t want you to worry about me.”  
  
“Well, too bad for you, then, huh?” she snapped.  
  
“Lizzy…” He heaved a heavy sigh. He had only buttoned his shirt again to the middle of his chest so she still had a good view of a lot of discolored skin, especially when he stretched to put his glass back on the tray; her brows furrowed.  
  
“You said you were fine on the phone, but this had to’ve happened weeks ago. I don’t want you to lie to protect—”  
  
 “Doing what I do is like walking a tightrope,” he interrupted sharply. “I took a calculated risk. It paid off, even if I didn’t come out completely unscathed. The way I see it, that’s more than fine.”  
  
“Seriously? You’re really going to try to downplay this?” His only answer was to tilt his head to one side, returning her intense stare with one of his own. “‘A calculated risk’, my ass. Somebody beat you.”  
  
He clenched his jaw and nodded just once.  
  
“Tortured you.”  
  
Again, a silent nod.  
  
“Jesus, Red. You say you didn’t want me to worry, but what if things had turned out even worse? What the hell would I have thought if you just dropped off the face of the earth and I never heard from you again?”  
  
His eyes slid shut, his face twisting as if he were in pain even now. “I would’ve… Someone would have informed you…”  
  
“Gee, thanks, that’s so comforting,” she bit out, her voice icy with sarcasm. She scowled, more at herself than at him. She didn’t want to chastise him—he was _hurt_ —but every word that came out of her mouth had a harsh edge to it far beyond her control. A nervous itch crawled up into her chest, the instinct to run or hide or curl up under her blanket and cry nearly overwhelmed her.    
  
But that was it, then, wasn’t it? She was scared. Scared of losing him. Scared of him being killed, of finding out he had suffered. She was in too deep not to worry about him, no matter what he might want. Even if they weren’t together, she still would. Just knowing that he was out there somewhere… Well, she cared now and he would have to deal with it. She couldn’t just turn it off. She didn’t even want to try.  
  
Red shrugged his shoulders in defeat. He looked so… lost. He seemed completely out of sorts at the thought of her worrying about him. “What do you want me to say?”  
  
“I don’t know, OK?” She ran her hands through her hair while her eyes welled up with frustrated tears. It took every fiber of her being to resist the urge to pace the floor in her little bedroom. “I’ve never… I guess I…” Her bottom lip began to tremble as she struggled to put the maelstrom of her thoughts and feelings into coherent sentences.  
  
“I… I want you to realize that if we’re in a relationship, _I am going to worry about you_. There’s nothing you can do about that. You can’t just… hide the danger from me and somehow think that’ll protect me from the consequences. I _want_ the consequences. I want a complete relationship, not just the simple parts.  
  
“And maybe I’d like you to think about me _before_ you do something reckless. I… I haven’t had the easiest life. You know that. I don’t know how well I’d take it if I lost you in some terrible tragedy on top of everything else. Especially if it could be avoided somehow.”  
  
He studied her face silently for several long seconds. “I doubt if it’s much solace,” he said, “but I did think about you while I…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “It was more along the lines of a soldier carrying a photo of his sweetheart with him in his foxhole to remind him he has something to live for, instead of… what I suppose it should have been. I’m sorry, Lizzy.”  
  
“People worry about you, right? Not just me.”  
  
His mouth quirked up on one side in a sad almost-smile. “Sometimes.”  
  
“And you’re OK with that?”  
  
“I’d rather they didn’t,” he said. “But you’re right. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s just part and parcel of having someone involved in my life. In a positive capacity, at least.”  
  
Liz felt her heart clench in her chest; she ached for him, for this lonely, rootless man who lived so long on his own, who pushed away anyone who might care for him so well that he didn’t know how to react when someone managed to breach his defenses. And it was obvious she had done exactly that, just as thoroughly as he had breached hers.  
  
All of a sudden, she was struck by a visceral, bone-deep realization that if it weren’t for her dad or for Jess or for Red, her life would be very much in danger of following the same lonely path that his had. She rarely let people get close to her—because she was afraid that she’d lose them, because she already had lost just about as much as she could bear. Judging by his own actions, that was perhaps something they had in common as well.  
  
Swallowing around the lump in her throat, she said, “Why would someone want to torture you, Red?”  
  
He grimaced faintly. “My work is… complicated.”  
  
“I’m not asking you to explain your entire operation to me, I get that you can’t do that. But you gotta give me something, because I need to understand why it’s worth… all of this. It’s obviously not just the money. You’re comfortable enough that you wouldn’t have to work if you didn’t want to.”  
  
The familiar glimmer of mischief in his eyes sparked back to life, replacing the gloominess in an instant. “Are you profiling me, Lizzy?”  
  
Liz felt her jaw lift of its own volition, half in defense, half in challenge. “Maybe I am.”  
  
Red’s face lit up and he stood, gesturing towards her bed. “Do you mind if I…?”  
  
“No, go ahead,” she said, slightly bewildered by the abrupt change in his mood, but then again, he always was fascinated by her interest in profiling. Maybe he liked the idea that she might understand him, even when he wasn’t so willing to open up and share parts of himself on his own. Maybe that’s why she was drawn to him, too.  
  
She handed him her mostly untouched plate of food and scooted over to make room for him, but her bed was narrow enough that his shoulder pressed rather snugly against her side when he stretched out next to her. He crossed his legs so as not to take up quite so much space, folding his hands over his chest.  
  
Peering up at her from the pillow, he explained, “This particular incident involved an imminent kidnapping threat against two very important people. No one is going to believe any old whack-job who walks in off the street claiming to have information about a plot against their interests, but when I came across this intel, I was led to believe the plan would move forward in the very near future. I had to give the relevant people a reason to listen to me, and fast, while also proving to them that I wasn’t the source of the threat myself. I had to make it more worth their while to trust me than to distrust me.”  
  
“So you put yourself through hell to prove how serious you were.”  
  
He nodded. “None of it was above board. At all.” He shrugged. “Still, it got the job done.”  
  
“And you didn’t tell me about this just because you didn’t want me to worry about you?”  
  
“Well, that, yes… and maybe I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop and for you to figure out that a morally bankrupt asshole like me isn’t worth your time.”  
  
“Oh, come on. Crap like that happens everyday. You think anyone gave a damn where the information came from when they carted Floriana Campo off to prison after her human trafficking ring was uncovered? No. They only cared that someone stopped her.”  
  
“So you believe the ends justify the means?”  
  
“Don’t you?” she asked. “There’s so many reasons people do what they do. If the outcome is positive and you don’t hurt anyone innocent in the process, does it really matter?” She sat up straighter on the bed, twisting so she could look at him better, a frisson of excitement rushing through her veins. “I mean, hell… I bet my thesis on the idea that when push came to shove, most people would agree. Those sources you gave me on Campo made a hell of an impact on my research, by the way.”  
  
Red inclined his head at the acknowledgement, but his gaze had drifted to her mouth and she felt the sudden heat of his stare low in her gut. He wanted to kiss her, oh, how he wanted to kiss her! But she wasn’t yet ready to channel the intensity of her emotions back into lovemaking, something he apparently understood quite well without her having to say so. He offered her a quirk of a smile and dragged his gaze back up to her eyes.  
  
His hand found hers on the covers between them; he lifted it to his mouth so he could press his lips to the back of it before he laced their fingers together and let out a long sigh. “Don’t let the FBI kill that fire in your belly, Lizzy. They’re not so quick to think outside the box in my experience, and they certainly don’t encourage it in their agents.”  
  
“I won’t let them change me.”  
  
“You might not have much choice. If you’re not their cookie-cutter ideal, they’ll either try to mold you to fit it or assign you somewhere where you won’t cause too much trouble.”  
  
“What, do you think I’m more suited to intelligence work?”  
  
“It does lend itself to those who are able to see the gray areas in life. But there are aspects of what I do… I wouldn’t wish them on anybody. Especially you.”


	10. Chapter 10

A sudden booming rumble of thunder roused Liz just before sunrise and for a brief, groggy moment, she wasn’t quite sure where she was. After all, she only had one point of reference for having Red snoring softly at her side and it certainly wasn’t in the woefully narrow bed in her college apartment.  
  
Another loud rumble sent Liz shuffling down under the covers to snuggle closer to him, if that was even possible. How Red managed to stay asleep despite all the noise, she’d never know. The storm that had rolled in overnight was the type of thunderstorm she remembered so vividly from her childhood, the kind that marked the inevitable change from the crisp, refreshing atmosphere of springtime to hot, sticky summer weather.  
  
Sheets of driving rain spattered Liz’s bedroom window and every flash of lightning threw the incongruously imposing shadow of her tiny cactus onto her wall. She buried her face in the pillow next to Red’s head to try to block some of it out, but the strong scent of ozone and wet soil still tickled her nostrils.  
  
It was only once she had nearly drifted off to sleep again that the reason for the potency of that fresh earthy aroma floated through her mind and her eyes popped open.  
  
Crap. She left the window open a crack last night, didn’t she?  
  
Disentangling herself from Red’s embrace, she scrambled out of her blankets and struggled to crawl out of the tiny bed without disturbing him, which was easier said than done. Back in her big hotel bed, they had often woken wrapped around in each other; here in a bed half as big, they had no other option even if they wanted one.  
  
Red stirred despite her best efforts once her feet hit the floor, causing the bed to shift without her weight on it anymore.  
  
“Liz _zy_ , it’s early, come back to bed,” he said. His voice was deep and rough from sleep; it sent a familiar thrill up her spine. He poked his head out from her pile of pillows, and squinted at her across the room. “What are you doing?”  
  
“Trying to avoid losing my deposit to water damage.”  
  
She moved quickly to mop up the rain from the window sill and the floor, stealing glances at Red over her shoulder while she worked. His hair was sleep-mussed, sticking up at odd angles, and he offered her a lazy, awkward smile after she found herself staring at him silently for a few moments too long.  
  
How could a man who dealt with such darkness on a regular basis be so adorable? Red put himself in grave danger just weeks ago and yet here he was, as light and sweet and playful as ever. She wondered at his ability to maintain his fascination and enjoyment of the world when he was so often exposed to the potential horrors of it. She wasn’t sure she had it in her to do the same. At least, not without someone around to remind her to look for the good out there.  
  
Truth be told, there was perhaps a lot she could learn from Red.  
  
 An especially loud and swift crack of thunder rent the air and Liz flinched, taking an instinctive step back from the window. Red threw back the covers and padded across the room. He rested his warm hands on her shoulders and peered out into the dreary, gray morning that was gradually brightening despite the overcast, stormy sky.  
  
“What a day, huh?” he said. Last night as they drifted off to sleep, they had talked about venturing out in search of the perfect hidden gem of a coffee shop for breakfast, but the weather made leaving the comfortable dryness of her little apartment much less appealing now.  
  
Well.  
  
It was still _mostly_ dry.  
  
Liz balled up her soggy towel and tossed it into the hamper. “Maybe we should just stay in today.”  
  
“Maybe we should,” he agreed. He brushed the hair away from the nape of her neck and pressed his lips there, lingering. “I’m sure we’ll find a way to celebrate your first full day of freedom anyway.”  


* * *

  
  
Red’s enthusiasm for cunnilingus always came as a bit of a shock to Liz, but the spike of arousal she felt whenever he dropped to his knees in front of her surprised her even more. The visuals did it for her almost as much as the physical sensations, though she certainly couldn’t knock those either.  
  
That was the state she found herself in now, sitting crosswise at the edge of her bed with one hand buried in the hair at the back of Red’s head and the other bracing herself so she could watch him—caught somewhere in between the growing desire to climax and the desire to make the experience last as long as possible so she could enjoy the view.  
  
Either way, Red teased her mercilessly, leaving tiny nipping kisses as he meandered his way to his ultimate destination, taking his sweet time despite the way her fingers tightened insistently in his hair, tugging him close, closer, closer still.  
  
He had one of his hands splayed across her lower abdomen below her belly button with his thumb edging close to somewhere useful, and the other one clutched at her thigh where it lay draped over his shoulder. The stubble on his cheeks rubbed against the delicate skin of her inner thighs with every delicious movement. She’d be sore there later; she didn’t care one whit.  
  
At the first swipe of his tongue through her wetness, Red let out a deep and resonant moan as if he was the one being pleasured. But, then again, maybe he was. He always seemed just about as turned on by doing this for her as he was by the other sexual things they’d done. His passion for it was certainly as evident as ever and he put it to good use.  
  
He was, after all, _very_ good at this—every lick, every caress, every nuzzle well-placed to bring about exactly the pleasure he intended. He took going down on someone and turned it into an art form.  
  
A noisy art form, which was quite inconvenient at the moment. The last thing Liz wanted was to wake Jess. Her apartment was much too tiny and the walls much too thin for any real privacy. It was one thing for her roommate to know, intellectually speaking, that she and Red were sleeping together. It was another thing entirely for her to know the hows and whys and whens, to hear firsthand the types of sounds the two of them made while they were in bed.    
  
“Hey, shh,” she coaxed, reminding him of the need for discretion.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Red whispered, “You taste intoxicating.”  
  
“Thanks. I think.”  
  
He chuckled, a delightful rumble where he pressed against her heated skin. It was all she could do to stifle the moans that threatened to creep up her own throat, aroused as she was. Her efforts, however, were about to become very moot indeed.  
  
To Liz’s horror, her doorknob began to rattle and turn, but before she could even manage to choke out a single word in warning, she looked up and made eye contact with one very surprised, very freshly showered Jess, who dripped even more water onto her poor, maligned floorboards.  
  
“Jess, what the hell?”  
  
“Holy crap, I’m sorry, I was looking for the hair dryer.”  
  
“There’s a scrunchie on the doorknob!”  
  
“I thought it was from last night,” she said in a rush, “I thought you went out for breakfast!”  
  
 “Well, obviously we didn’t!”    
  
Jess’s eyes were wide, like a deer caught in the headlights, and she had yet to look away. At least Red’s head preserved some of Liz’s modesty, such as it was. And from behind, between his shirt and his boxer-briefs, Jess wasn’t getting much of a show there either.  
  
“Hey, you know, it’s not like you’ve given me much practice with this kind of thing!”  
  
“Oh my God, I am not having this discussion right now, _get out_.”  
  
“OK, OK, I’m gone!”  
  
As soon as the door clicked shut behind Jess, Liz turned her attention to Red. The bastard between her legs had had the gall to keep up his ministrations throughout the entire exchange with her roommate, making it nearly impossible for her to keep her mind focused properly. In fact, he still hadn’t let up.  
  
“ _Hey_ “—she tilted Red’s head back with that fistful of hair—“what the hell do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“If you have to ask, I must not be doing a good job.” He tried to lean in again but she held fast. “Do you want to stop?” he drawled.  
  
“No,” she said. “Now that the cat’s out of the bag, Jess can just consider it payback for all the times I’ve had to study while she’s had Mike over doing God knows what in her bedroom. Loudly.”  
  
“Well, if you don’t want to stop”—he dragged his gaze up her body and met her eyes, smiled a wicked smile, licked his lips—“what do you want?”  
  
Liz shivered and loosened her hold on his hair. “Get up here, now.”  
  
Red didn’t need to be told twice. He scrambled to his feet and stripped off his shirt, dropping the expensive fabric to the floor without a second thought.  
  
Liz pushed herself onto the bed so that her back rested against the pillows. Red followed close behind, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss. It was still new and exciting to taste herself on his lips; she angled her head to deepen the kiss, to savor the sensation fully. She pulled Red tightly to her by the hips, slid her hands around to clutch at his ass, rocking and rubbing herself against his hardness.  
  
Red reached out to fumble around in her nightstand drawer and she knew the exact moment when his fingers connected not with the condoms he was searching for, but with something else. His lips quirked up in the corners against her mouth and when he pulled back, she saw that he was holding something longish and purple.  
  
Oh, dear Lord. He found her vibrator.  
  
He examined the toy with a curious glint in his eye, sizing it up, switching it on and off. Then, to Liz’s humiliation, he raised it to his nose and _sniffed_ ; she blushed a deep, beet red, but she couldn’t find it in herself to stop watching him.  
  
“Have you thought of me while you used this?” he asked, sounding a bit strange, a bit strained.  
  
She opened her mouth to answer but no sound came out; she could only nod. Red twitched against her thigh. He kept looking back and forth between her and the toy with his mouth slightly parted, a question poised on his tongue. He seemed to be having just as much trouble forming words as she did.  
  
Anxiety began to rear its ugly head the longer he stayed silent. “What?”  
  
“Show me?” he said, more a question than a request. His voice had gone quiet, almost shy, and just a little… hopeful.  
  
Liz’s breath caught in her chest. She swallowed reflexively and nodded again. “OK.”  
  
“OK?”  
  
“Yeah. If you show me.”  
  
“What d’you m—“  
  
“Let me see you touch yourself,” she said quickly, before she lost her nerve. Red nodded before she had a chance to worry she’d gone too far.  
  
“Yeah. Sure.” He leaned back on his haunches. “How do you want to…?”  
  
Thinking fast, Liz pulled one of the pillows out from behind her back and handed it to Red, motioning for him to prop himself up facing her at the foot of the bed. They settled themselves so they were almost overlapping, legs cradling each other in the middle. She drew her fingernails through the hair on his shin and his calf, and he shivered, stretching his leg out further to be even closer to her touch.  
  
Liz took a slow, deep breath. She’d never done anything like this before, never masturbated in front of someone else. Strangely, it felt more intimate than sex, sharing this part of herself, this act she usually only experienced alone. Could she do it with his unblinking attention on her body, completely and utterly exposed to him?  
  
She could.  
  
His fingers tightened slightly on the soft skin of her ankle when she began to tease herself with the toy. She rocked up as she slowly slid it inside and his hips came up a bit as well in an unconscious thrust. Pleasure lanced though her abdomen, and she couldn’t tell how much of it came from the physical stimulation and how much came from the heat and weight of his gaze.  
  
His erection strained against the dark fabric of his underwear. His free hand rested on his thigh, his index finger tracing the seam along the leg of his shorts mere inches from the tip of him and the dark, damp patch of fabric that covered it. Liz’s mouth started to water.  
  
“Come on, your turn,” she said, desperate to see him, and rocked her hips in short little thrusts against the toy.  
  
The faintest hint of a whimper escaped his parted lips at the sight before him. He slipped his hand beneath his waistband and drew himself out, closed his fingers around his shaft and began to move them up and down his length. He teased more liquid from the tip, spreading it to help ease his movements. Liz moaned and rocked faster, clenching herself around her toy in time with his strokes.  
  
Goodness. If cocks could be beautiful, Red had a beautiful cock. Well-shaped, nicely-proportioned, and thick—he filled her so much better than her vibrator. Just the anticipation of finally experiencing that feeling again made the pleasure building inside her now even sweeter. If she wasn’t so intent on watching him, she could easily call the whole thing off, if only to experience it sooner.  
  
But she wanted—no, _needed_ to see him. She never had the opportunity to study him like this before, or anybody else for that matter. She’d maybe seen a stroke here and there as he prepared himself for her, but nothing prolonged, nothing she could observe and memorize to use on him herself.  
  
Liz watched, mesmerized, as Red worked his fingers, his fist, and his wrist, trying as she might to learn the rhythm and motion he liked best, to discover his most sensitive spots. She may not yet be a match for his considerable skill and experience, but in time she would be, and until then she seemed to get by quite well on earnest enthusiasm and instinct.  
  
It didn’t take long for either of them to reach their breaking point. When he did, he reached out towards her urgently, and she grabbed hold of his hand, entwined their fingers in a tight grip. His eyes locked on hers as he came, and she followed soon after, hips arching off the bed.  
  
Liz came down slowly, panting, trembling, and boneless in the aftermath; Red was the same, boxer-briefs stretched around his thighs, his spent cock against his belly. Once she could move again without shaking too badly, she plucked a few tissues from the box next to her bed and handed them to him before taking another for herself.  
  
“Wait,” he said, hoarse but determined, “May I?” He held out his hand and she stared at it for a few seconds before she caught on and placed the vibrator in his palm.  
  
She watched him as he licked the toy clean with her lips parted, half in surprise, half in exhilaration. He sucked the tip into his mouth, careful not miss any of her slickness. Her abdomen throbbed, wild and pleasant, and she swallowed hard against the unexpectedly swift return of her arousal.  
  
“God. I hope Jess didn’t use all the hot water.”


	11. Chapter 11

After they finished showering, Liz lounged on her bed reading while Red scrutinized himself in the mirror on the inside of her closet door. He hadn’t thought to bring anything extra to wear with him when he came over the day before, so he begrudgingly took her up on her offer to let him rummage through the odd collection of souvenir clothing he’d foisted off on her back at the hotel.   
  
In an effort to find the least offensive combination that he could, he’d settled so far on a somewhat muted pair of sweatpants and a mustard colored t-shirt with a misshapen clipart image of the hotel screen-printed across the front.  
  
“These are truly horrific.”  
  
She glanced up from her book to give him quick once-over and bit her lip. The outfit was ugly to be sure, but it was not without its merits, at least as far as she was concerned.  
  
“Oh, I don’t know. You gotta admit the sweatpants aren’t all bad.”  
  
Red locked eyes with her in the mirror, and raised an eyebrow. “Really, Lizzy, just because they make my ass look good—“  
  
“Not just your ass.”  
  
He barked a laugh. “Well. That’s right to the point, isn’t it?”  
  
He pulled a pea green crew-neck sweatshirt on over the t-shirt and stood back to assess the damage. “Good God. Whoever is responsible for designing these should have their eyes checked.”   
  
“Who was the one who insisted on cleaning out their entire inventory again? I can’t remember.”  
  
“Very funny.” He tugged at the sweatshirt collar, looking vaguely ill and extremely uncomfortable. “To hell with it. This is torture,” he said, and pulled it off again.   
  
“Geez, and for you to use the word torture…”  
  
“Oh, hush, you.”  
  
“Hey, it’s your own damn fault for buying all this crap.” She flipped her book shut with a snap and stood. “There are a couple plain white t-shirts that should fit you in the bottom drawer if you really can’t handle all the clashing.”  
  
Far more relieved than the situation warranted, Red crouched down to pull open the drawer and grabbed one of the shirts like it was a lifeline. “Lizzy, it’s cruel to hold out on a man like that. These are…” He frowned as he ran his fingers over the fabric. “These are _mine_. Aren’t they? I thought some of my undershirts had gone missing.”  
  
“I admit nothing,” she said with a wicked grin, and ducked out of the room.  
  
Liz giggled to herself as she walked down the hall. Of course she stole the shirts from him. They probably cost as much as a three-credit course, there was no way she could afford to buy any for herself. Besides, they were _his_ shirts. That’s what mattered most on late, lonely nights.  
  
She was still smiling by the time she reached the kitchen. Jess, who was sitting at the island making herself a plate of food from last night’s containers of leftovers, waggled her eyebrows at her.  
  
“Someone’s in a good mood today,” she said. Liz rolled her eyes.  
  
“Come on, it was just sex. Nothing I haven’t overheard you get up to a hundred times before.”  
  
“I haven’t seen you smile like this in months, Liz, I doubt it’s just the sex.” She shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry for teasing you, but seriously… I know how stressed you’ve been lately. It’s just nice to see you relax and enjoy yourself. I’m really happy for you.”  
  
Words failed Liz, but she nodded in acknowledgment and offered Jess an awkward little smile, as well. She cleared her throat and said, “Hey, budge over, will you? Is there any more sweet and sour pork?”  
  
“Yeah, I think it’s in that one over there.”   
  
A few moments later, after Liz and Jess had well and truly tucked into their meals, their companionable silence was interrupted by Red finally emerging from his morning routine.   
  
“Well, if I ever needed proof that you two were in college, there it is: cold Chinese food for breakfast.”  
  
“Hey, don’t knock it,” said Jess. “Everything from The Dragon House tastes just as good leftover as it does fresh. Sometimes even better.”  
  
“Which is lucky, because we’ll probably be eating it for the next three days,” Liz said around a bite of pork. She swallowed, taking in the tiny scraps of toilet paper stuck along Red’s jawline. “What happened to you?”  
  
“I made the mistake of trying to shave with one of your spare razors. How you haven’t bled to death yet is anyone’s guess.” He walked over to the trash barrel carrying the offending blade between two fingers like it was a dangerous creature. “If you’re going to buy cheap disposables, Lizzy, do yourself a favor and buy men’s. These are a ripoff.”   
  
Jess recognized the shirt Red was wearing and turned to Liz with a brow raised. Liz shrugged. Jess had wondered about the sudden appearance of the too-big shirts in Liz’s wardrobe. Now she finally had her answer—the shirt fit Red like it was made for him (and, to be honest, it probably had been).  
  
“Nice ink,” she said, eyeing the tattoo his short sleeves no longer covered. “Does it mean something? I swear that design looks familiar.”  
  
Red grabbed a plate, pulled out a stool, and sat. “It’s a nautical star. It’s come to represent any number of things over the years, but traditionally, it was a sailor’s tattoo. Sailors are a superstitious bunch; they relied upon the stars to navigate at night and Polaris, the North Star”—he tapped the tattoo on his arm—“became a symbol of good luck, luck that they would be able to find their way home. That’s what it’s always meant to me.”  
  
Liz rested her hand on his shoulder and rubbed her thumb back and forth under his collar, just low enough to catch the edge of the scars on his back. “Red’s an old Navy man,” she said.  
  
“ _Former_ Navy man.”  
  
“Former, that’s right. Never old.” She slid her fingers up to the back of his neck. “Are you blushing?”  
  
He took her other hand and brought it to his lips, holding her gaze as he kissed the back of it; Liz shivered pleasantly. “At least I’m not the only one.”  
  
“You guys really only spent a week together?” Jess asked. They both hummed in confirmation. “Geez, a week and you’re already so in tune with each other. I’ve been with Mike for a year and he still doesn’t remember what color my eyes are.”  
  
“Mike is colorblind.”  
  
“See, that’s what I mean. Hey, remember that night he was supposed to be the designated driver but when he took my car keys, he accidentally dropped them down a sewer—”   
  
Liz’s stomach sank. “ _Jess_ , you promised you’d never—”  
  
“—And somehow you managed to successfully hot-wire my car even though you were drunk off your ass?”  
  
Too late.  
  
“You know how to hot-wire a car?” came Red’s curious question.  
  
Liz turned to face him, apprehension at his reaction swirling in her gut, but she saw nothing but the heat of desire in his eyes. What a silly thing to worry about. This was _Red_ , king of the moral gray area.  
  
“Yeah. I do.”  
  
He tilted his head to one side, obviously impressed. “How’d you learn to do that?”  
  
She shrugged. “It’s just something I picked up in high school.”  
  
“No offense, but you don’t really strike me as an automotive class kind of girl.”  
  
“Who said I learned it in class?”  
  
“Oh?”  
  
“Geez, you two, get a room,” Jess said.  
  
“We tried that already, what we really need is a lock,” Liz quipped; Jess stuck her tongue out at her. “Nice. Real mature.”  
  
“You’re never gonna let me live that one down, are you?”  
  
“Nope, probably not.”  
  
“Now, Lizzy,” Red said, squeezing her hand a bit to regain her attention, “about this hot-wiring business… This is very valuable information, we shouldn’t let it go to waste.” He leaned back in his stool, regarding her with interest. “What do you say you and me go on a cross-country sightseeing tour slash crime spree sometime; I can show you all of my favorite spots and you can steal us a new car every day to help keep the Feds off our tails.”  
  
“Sounds exciting, when do we leave?”  
  
“How about after graduation? Ah, but it might put a damper on your future with the FBI.”  
  
“Right, right.” She patted his hand on the countertop. “We’ll have to hold off until my inevitable disenchantment and burnout. Then at least I’ll have an excuse.”  
  
Jess looked back and forth between the two of them, eyebrows somewhere near her hairline. “You’re both a little weird, you know that?”  
  
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”  
  


* * *

  
  
Liz slept so much better with warm flesh and a beating heart beneath her ear, something she hadn’t discovered until Red. And maybe it only applied to him, she wasn’t sure. She was sure she’d never felt comfortable enough around anyone else to find out. With Red, though, it was more than natural. Even on the ratty old sofa in her living room.  
  
They’d spent the afternoon watching DVDs and napping in each other’s arms, which as far as she was concerned was the perfect way to celebrate the end of her undergrad career. She had a mountain of sleep debt to work off, and she suspected Red wasn’t any different. The sooner they started, the better.  
  
The sun was starting to set when Red tried to gently extricate himself from the couch to run to the bathroom. “I’ll be back,” he whispered, and dropped a kiss on Liz’s nose. She smiled and rolled over, blocking out the last remnants of sunlight and the glow from the TV screen.  
  
Her peace wouldn’t last for long. For the second time in one day, Jess burst into a room unexpectedly, although this time—thankfully—there wasn’t anything intimate to interrupt.   
  
Damn. And Liz was _just_ starting to doze off again.  
  
“Jesus, Jess. What’s going on?”  
  
“Liz, you gotta see this. Some anonymous whistle-blower just exposed a massive government conspiracy. Everyone’s freaking out, it’s amazing.” She snatched up the remote and punched the button to switch the input back to cable. “Look, it’s on every channel.”   
  
Liz hadn’t seen so many news tickers scrolling across the bottom of the screen since freshman year, in those early days after September 11th. She struggled to focus on what the news anchor was saying and not let the complete information overload overwhelm her.  
  
“ _Investigators have been working round the clock for weeks to verify the intel, but the source proved their credibility to at least one family very quickly—by releasing information that allowed the Secret Service to avert a national crisis and helping to quash a kidnapping and ransom plot against the First Daughters. While the authorities were much more inclined to trust the source after this amazing feat, many in power fear that uncovering corruption on such a large scale all at once could put our national security at risk_.”  
  
“Geez. This is big. They really have no idea who did it?”  
  
Jess shook her head. “I bet they’ll figure it out real quick, though. Probably with a bullet to his brain.”  
  
“What did I miss?” Liz tore her attention away from the television to find Red standing at her side next to the sofa.  
  
“Someone just blew the whistle on a huge government conspiracy. Jess thinks they’re gonna kill him.”  
  
“I’m sure he thought about the risks before he came forward. If he had enough information to turn the government on its head, he would have had contingency plans in place to ensure his safety before he did it.”  
  
“Oh, come on, really?” Jess sounded offended at the very thought.  
  
“Do you really think someone would make a move like this without considering the consequences?”  
  
“I don’t know. He could have a death wish.”  
  
“Well, OK, maybe. But still,” Liz said. “He established his value by saving the President’s daughters, but it didn’t have to be such a public thing. He must have had something else to gain by choosing something so showy to start with.”  
  
“Like a presidential pardon, perhaps,” Red offered.  
  
Liz turned to disagree with him, but there was something in the expression on his face that gave her pause. He was resolute, but almost… dispassionate. Those bruises hidden just below the vee of his t-shirt flashed through her mind like a glaring beacon. No. Surely not…  
  
She stood quickly, grabbing his hand and pulling him along to her bedroom before closing the door behind her.  
  
Red smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “After the incident this morning with Jess, I’m flattered you’re still so eager to—”  
  
“Was it you?”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“I know I sound crazy even asking this but…” She raised her chin and looked at him directly in the eye. “The whistle-blower. Was it you?”  
  
“You sure you want me to answer that?”  
  
“See, that right there, why would you say something like that if the answer was no?”  
  
“I wouldn’t.”  
  
“That’s what I mean, you woul—you wouldn’t?” Liz sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. ”Oh my God, Red… Who the hell are you?”  
  
“I am what I told you I am. An ex-intelligence officer who knows a thing or two about criminals.”  
  
“Because you are one.”  
  
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” He nodded to the space next to her, asking her permission to sit. She shifted over to give him more room.  
  
Liz didn’t think she had ever felt quite so many conflicting emotions as once, but not a single one of them was disappointment. She knew a revelation like this should be devastating. Anybody would consider it a relationship deal-breaker—it was laughable, really, that it was anybody’s reality to even have to consider something like this. But that fission of excitement she’d always had around Red was more prominent now than ever. Dear God, what kind of person was she? She liked to think she was above going for the bad boy, yet here she was.   
  
But did ‘bad boy’ really describe Red when you came down to it? He was thoughtful and kind, generous and genuinely interested in people and their stories. He made her feel wanted and cared for in a way no other guy ever had. He certainly never tried to deny his own dark side, and he seemed more than a little fascinated by hers.  
  
“Jesus, Red. I thought maybe you were just black ops, or a paid contractor or something.”  
  
“That’s more or less true, actually. I’ve had something of an arrangement with a group within the government for almost fifteen years now. I’ve been building a network of contacts and allies in the underworld, all the while working to dismantle some of the world’s most heinous underground empires, through extralegal means.”  
  
“You had their approval for this?”  
  
“Oh, my gosh, no. It was a… symbiotic relationship. They didn’t care about the riffraff I took out as long as I steered clear of their assets. So I did, at least on the surface. I played a long enough game that they wouldn’t notice what was going on until it was too late. Besides, some of the monsters I dealt with were so reprehensible even corrupt government officials were glad to see the end of them.”  
  
One of Liz’s favorite things about profiling were those moments when she made a sudden leap in logic—moments like this one, when all the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.  
  
“ _You’re_ the one responsible for the intel that brought down Floriana Campo and her organization.”  
  
He blinked, surprised. “Yeah.”  
  
Liz felt a heady surge of pride and admiration flood through her veins. Stopping Campo was nothing short of heroic, and it was Red who did it. _Red_. Her boyfriend, her… partner. Did he realize how many lives he saved, how much suffering he spared those people?  
  
“Wow, Red, you really… Who else?”  
  
“Quite a few people, most of whom no one would ever think of as significant.”  
  
She took his hand in both of hers. “Give me a name. Please. I’m sure there’s at least one more I’d recognize.”  
  
“Geoff Perl.”  
  
“The man behind The Mombasa Cartel?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“ _Red_.”  
  
“I’m not a hero, Lizzy.”  
  
“Maybe to the world, you’re not,” she said. The implication was clear as day: maybe he could be _hers_. After all, he already had been once, hadn’t he? Quite literally.   
  
“This deal you had, these people… Did they know you were planning to release this information?”  
  
He huffed a laugh. “Of _course_ not, it implicates most of them. So, I went over their heads. The status quo just wasn’t good enough anymore. I was establishing value, like you said. And doing so publicly, with something so high-profile, it’s something like an insurance policy for my safety. I’m much less likely to be assassinated this way.”   
  
Her grip on his hand tightened. “Assassinated.”  
  
“I realize how pointless it is to tell you not to worry, but I have taken every precaution. I’m effectively off-limits. Anyone who tried to hurt me now would only be painting a target on their back and handing their enemies a homing missile.” He shook his head.  
  
“I’ve been sitting on the rest of that information for a long time. Selfishly, I was waiting for the most opportune moment to reveal it, the moment when I had the most to gain from it. And, selfishly, I chose that moment. This was a logical, inevitable step.”  
  
“Why now? What could you possibly have to gain from this?”  
  
“What could I gain from cleaning out the skeletons in my closet?” His lips quirked up in a melancholy smile. “Well, hopefully a fresh start, for one. The option to settle down somewhere, live life a little less on the edge all the time.”  
  
“Red, you… did you… you didn’t do this because of me, did you?”  
  
“In a way I did, Lizzy, I’d be lying if I said otherwise,” he admitted, “but it was time, regardless. The possibility of a new beginning is reason enough, even if things don’t work out between us in the long run. You can take it as a commitment if you want, because it is that, but it’s by no means an obligation.   
  
“I doubt I’ll ever live what most people consider a normal life, but this is the best chance I’ve got. You could end it with me right now just because I’m mixed up in all this and I would understand completely. I wouldn’t hold it against you in a thousand years. But if you think there’s a possibility, no matter how slight, that we could work, well…  
  
“Tell me to go and I’ll go. For a while, or forever. Or, if you think this is still worth a shot, let me stay. Either way, I’ll do whatever you say.”  
  
“I don’t want you to go,” Liz said, frowning; her eyes began to sting with unshed tears from the mere idea of it. “For God’s sake, I think I’m falling in love with you.”  
  
“I was hoping you’d say that. Well, not _that_ specifically, that’s more than I ever thought…” He kept hold of her hand and slid off the bed to kneel in front of her—with both knees firmly planted on the floor, she observed with a wave of relief. She might be falling for him, but she sure as hell wasn’t ready to marry him.   
  
“Lizzy. Elizabeth. You mean the world to me. You shined a light to lead me out of a darkness where I thought I had long ago lost my lonely, tattered soul. No matter what happens from this point on, I am forever grateful to you for that. But if you give me this chance, I promise I will do everything in my power to make sure you never have a reason to regret it.”


	12. Chapter 12

“ _Red_ …”   
  
Liz’s voice cracked as she said his name, as she studied the expression on his handsome face. He looked so hopeful, but also so… scared. Scared of _her_ , of what she might choose, despite what she’d said. The tears that had welled up in her eyes started to spill over and run down her cheeks. “Yes, I’ll give you a chance. Of course I will.”  
  
A brilliant smile lit up Red’s face and he leaned up almost shyly to capture her lips in a kiss more tentative than even their first kiss had been. It was both a reaffirmation of their young relationship and the beginning of a new chapter all at once. When they pulled apart some time later, Liz trailed her hands down his neck to knead gently at his tense shoulder muscles.   
  
“Were you planning on keeping all this a secret from me?”  
  
“Indefinitely? Gosh, no. I expected you to figure out what was going on after it became public knowledge, which you did.” He smiled again, sheepishly. “Though maybe that happened a bit quicker than I imagined it would. You’re a credit to your future profession.”  
  
Liz wanted to brush off the compliment with a laugh, to say that the only reason she connected the dots so quickly was because she knew him and it wouldn’t be nearly so easy in the real world, with strangers… but did she _really_ know him?   
  
Yes. Yes, she did. She knew Raymond Reddington, the man. Even if she didn’t know all of his dirty little secrets, she knew his heart. He was the type of man who would take down monsters like Campo and Perl from the shadows and take no public credit for it, who would risk his livelihood and his life for the mere _possibility_ of having a second chance. The more she learned about him, the more intrigued she became. The more fond of him she became.  
  
And now, while everyone else speculated about who had turned the world upside down, she had the unfair advantage of knowing the truth. She had a far better grasp of Red’s motivations than the wild theories she knew were already forming. Chances were no one would even come close.  
  
A knock sounded at Liz’s bedroom door.  
  
“Jess,” Liz stage whispered. “We took off like bats out of hell. What do we tell her?”  
  
Red chewed on the inside of his lip for a minute, looking thoughtful. “That’s up to you. Though the burden of this kind of information can be difficult to carry.”  
  
“You would tell her the truth?”  
  
He shrugged. “You know her better than I do. You know how she would react to learning about something like this better than I ever could.”  
  
Liz shook her head. “She probably wouldn’t believe us anyway. Maybe someday we could tell her. But not now.”  
  
That of course would depend on how long Red’s identity remained unknown to the public. Now _there_ was an unsettling thought. Secrets like this often didn’t last forever.  
  
“Liz?” came Jess’ voice, muffled by the door.  
  
“Hang on a second, Jess.”   
  
Liz sidestepped Red where he still knelt next to her bed and then crossed the room, taking a deep breath and straightening her clothes anxiously before she opened the door. Jess looked slightly disconcerted for a moment as she took in Liz’s appearance and then peered past her into the room as Red stood up more than a little awkwardly, and began tapping his fingers against his leg.  
  
“Are you guys OK? You left in a big hurry and it didn’t seem like it was for a fun reason.”  
  
“We’re fine, Jess. Thank you.”  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Yeah. Everything’s fine,” she said. Which would’ve been easier to believe if not for the fact that both her and Red’s eyes were a little teary and bright.   
  
“All right… If you say so.” She dropped her voice then and leaned close, speaking so that only Liz could hear her properly. “He didn’t do The Thing, did he?”  
  
Liz’s brow furrowed. “‘The Thing?’”  
  
“Yeah, you know—” Jess gestured strangely and rather insistently towards Liz’s left hand— “The Thing.”  
  
Oh, of _course_. It played right into Jess’ funny marriage kick to find Liz and Red how she found them—in the midst of an obvious emotional moment, with him down on his knees to boot. (And, to think, he was even fully clothed this time, too!)  
  
“Oh my god, Jess, you really do have a one track mind.” Liz held up her hand so Jess could see her bare ring finger. “I told you, he isn’t going to do ‘The Thing’. I’ll let you know if that changes.”  
  
“Right. Sorry. I’ll just leave you two alone, then.”   
  
Jess took a couple steps down the hall, but just as Liz was about to let her guard down and close the door again, she doubled back.   
  
“You know, I thought it would be strange,” she said. “Getting used to you in a relationship. But it’s really not. You two, you just kind of… fit, you know?”  
  
Red came up behind Liz, wrapped his arms lazily around her waist, and hooked his head over her shoulder.  
  
“Thank you, Jess,” he said, his chin pressing ticklishly into Liz’s shoulder as he spoke. “That means a lot coming from someone who cares so much about Lizzy.”  
  
“Well, I want to see her happy. You make her happy,” she said, earnest; she caught his gaze and held it. “But I promise you, if you ever don’t…”  
  
“Believe me, I would expect nothing less,” he said, solemn and serious.   
  
An odd moment passed as Liz watched Red and Jess watch each other. “Goodnight, Jess,” she said pointedly, hoping to break up their impromptu staring contest.  
  
“Goodnight, Jess,” Red parroted. He and Jess nodded at each other in silent understanding before she finally smiled and headed back to the living room.  
  
With a relieved sigh, Liz slid out of Red’s embrace and shut the door.  
  
“So…” Red said, “what’s ‘The Thing’?”  
  
“Jess thinks you’re going to propose.”  
  
“Ah,” he said, and ran his fingers through the hair on the back of his head; Liz didn’t know how to read the expression on his face.  
  
“You’re not, are you?” she asked, in a breathless rush, beginning to doubt her certainty. “Because everything in my life is moving so fast right now, I don’t think I’m ready to—“  
  
“Oh, Lizzy.” He took both of her hands in his, stroking his thumbs across the backs of them in a soft, soothing rhythm. “I think I’ve put enough unintended pressure on you already by throwing the whistle-blower thing into your lap.”  
  
Red squeezed Liz’s hands gently, hoping to coax her to look at him properly. When she did, she found him studying her with clear concern. “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t try to push you to do something that you’re not ready for.”  
  
“I know. I’ve tried to tell Jess that we’re just not there, but… I guess I panicked for a second.”  
  
He cupped her cheek, his fingers a whisper of a caress against her soft skin. “If all of this has been too much for you too quickly…”  
  
Liz reached up and rested a finger across his lips, shushing him gently. “Stop. You’re crazy if you think I’m gonna let you go right now. As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t crossed the line into something I can’t handle. And if we ever do, you gotta trust me to tell you if I’m overwhelmed. I want to give us a shot. Really.”  
  
She pressed a quick, reassuring kiss to his lips and slipped her arms under his, pulling him close again. She felt his mouth at her temple, his breath stirring her hair. He rocked side to side subtly, almost as if he were moving them in a lazy, endless slow dance.   
  
Liz hummed drowsily, and Red guided her head to rest comfortably against his shoulder. She was just beginning to drift off in his arms when her mind jolted back into awareness with a nauseating realization.  
  
“Oh god,” she said, pulling back far enough to meet his eyes. “I just thought of something. My dad. What are we gonna tell him?”  
  
“You mean about the whistle-blowing?” Red sighed. “Sam’s a smart guy. Knowing what he knows about me, he’ll probably put the pieces together and realize I was the one who did this pretty quickly. He’ll wonder why I did it, and especially why I did it now. He’s still going to be in for a hell of a shock when he shows up here.”  
  
“Tell me about it,” she said, with an anxious chuckle.  
  
Suddenly, the small world of Liz’s campus felt safe instead of suffocating. She had never been more glad that Red showed up there when he did. Now this was a place where he could hide away and lay low for a while, as the repercussions of his information worked to change the world at large.


End file.
